Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX

[Pradu]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_ ... s_for_UNIX
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interix

Perhaps we can make our engines fully compliant with Windows and UNIX by using only POSIX code?

[Onno Garms]

When starting a new project, it is nice to implement the system functions only once. In a running project, I don't see a reason to change them. I need different implementations for timer access and for non-blocking keyboard query. (Anything else, anybody?) Those are nicely wrapped and it's unlikely they ever need to be revisited.

What license and what costs do Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX have?

I develop on Unix. The first transfer to windows was using Cygwin. In the meantime, I replaced Cygwin by native Windows functions to get rid of the GPL'ed cygwin1.dll. But note that
- There is a commercial cygwin license available (Does anybody know its price?)
- For those who plan to go open source with the GPL, Cygwin is a free alternative

[Pradu]

When starting a new project, it is nice to implement the system functions only once. In a running project, I don't see a reason to change them. I need different implementations for timer access and for non-blocking keyboard query. (Anything else, anybody?) Those are nicely wrapped and it's unlikely they ever need to be revisited.

Threads, Signals, Sockets, ect. True you'll only have to write it once but it'd be much easier in my opinion to develop with one particular set of libraries.

What license and what costs do Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX have?

It comes with Vista and you can download it for Windows XP for free I think.

I develop on Unix. The first transfer to windows was using Cygwin. In the meantime, I replaced Cygwin by native Windows functions to get rid of the GPL'ed cygwin1.dll. But note that
- There is a commercial cygwin license available (Does anybody know its price?)
- For those who plan to go open source with the GPL, Cygwin is a free alternative

[Onno Garms]

Threads, Signals, Sockets, ect.

OK, I don't have threads yet. I thought about using the boost thread library. Why do you need signals and sockets in your engine?

[Pradu]

Threads, Signals, Sockets, ect.

OK, I don't have threads yet. I thought about using the boost thread library. Why do you need signals and sockets in your engine?

I don't at the moment but I might. Perhaps for things like specialized ICS support.

[Dann Corbit]

The Windows POSIX library is a complete joke. They tacked it on so that they could claim POSIX compiliance for government contracts.

In short, it's completely and utterly worthless.

If you want a POSIX like environment on Windows, then use Cygwin if you need to be able to fork() or Mingw if you do not need the fork() operation (or can get by with CreateProcess()).

Trust me, you will be truly sorry you wasted your time with Windows POSIX layer.