Mail Archives: djgpp/2000/02/16/09:07:11
> >And the GPL definition of "free" is definately not what the normal
> >person thinks of free.
>
> So how should I say it? It's free in both senses (speech and beer).
I'm not sure what the GPL definition of free is myself (my brain's a little
foggy right now). Isn't it something like free for use, not free software?
> >Also, it's not so much an extender that's built into Windows,
> >it's a DPMI host.
>
> Noted.
Although I've been corrected. It is both an extender and a host. :)
> >Watcom cost me $500 Canadian. That's nowhere near "thousands".
> >Hundreds yes, thousands, no.
>
> Canadian dollars are an order of magnitude larger than
> "my local currency."
And American dollars is the same to me. It all works out to the same cost,
whether it's 1000 yen or a single dollar.
> >It seems to me that the only successful software ever written using
> >DJGPP is Quake.
>
> Damn successful.
True! However, attempting to base the success of a compiler through one
product is not a good method of promotion.
Doom, Doom2 (and all commercial Doom derivatives), Death Rally, Descent and
Descent 2, Tomb Raider, Warcraft, Command and Conquer, Fade to Black, Crusader,
Shattered Steel, KKND, Mechwarrior 2. There are more. They may not have *all*
had commercial success, but 3/4 of them were. And then there's operating
systems (DR-DOS and OS/2 as I said).
> >I'm not including libraries others have written (Allegro, they all
> >scream, is successful), I'm talking about popular, well used software.
>
> GCC was used for a popular OS (GNU/Linux). Most of the Doom ports are
> for DJGPP.
GCC was *written* for a popular OS. There's a subtle difference. And the
reason that so many people use DJGPP for these projects is that they don't
have/don't want to spend hundreds (or thousands) on a C compiler. DJGPP is
free. Freedom is wonderful, but doesn't make a product great by default.
Although I do agree that GCC, and hence DJGPP *are*
great. :)
> >And it seems to be a particularily difficult compiler for
> >"newbies" to use and set up.
>
> Just add two lines to your autoexec.bat and reboot. We can't
> control the fact that many users have the attention span of AOLers.
LOL... true. But some people who want to start programming honestly don't even
know what AUTOEXEC.BAT is! Or what an environment variable is. Or that just
using GCC will call the C, C++, Objective-C or assembler, depending on the
extention of the file. These are problems inherent in most compilers, but
DJGPP makes it painfully obvious. It is derived from a UNIX tool, and hence is
by nature going to be confusing and cryptic.
> Allegro works on Watcom too last time I checked.
I tried it a while back and it refused to compile. This may have been an older
version (mid-end 1999), and I haven't tried any recent versions.
> >32-bit protected-mode DOS,
>
> Any better than DJGPP?
I personally think that Watcom's PM DOS is better and more flexible. But
that's probably because I understand it better than DJGPP's method of doing
things.
> >Windows 3.x, Windows 9x, Windows NT,
>
> The DJGPP add-on RSXNTDJ does this, and there are other
> GCC ports (Cygwin and Mingw).
RSXNTDJ, unless things have changed, isn't noted for it's stability and general
usability. And regarding the other ports, that's what they are. I can use
Watcom for it all, or I can download a port for DOS, a port for Windows, a port
for OS/2... the difference is that I paid for Watcom.
> >QNX, Novel Netware, and (broken) ELF.
>
> GCC does fixed ELF.
=) One out of three isn't bad.
> >DJGPP handles 32-bit protected mode DOS.
>
> Better than any other compiler in its price range.
As I said, freeness doesn't automatically make a good product.
> >I take particular offense to the use of "dreaded" and "Watcom C++"
> >in the same sentence. Are you sure you haven't misplaced the dreaded?
> >Dreaded Microsoft Visual C++ sounds far more appropriate.
>
> allegro works on
> {
> mingw, linux, djgpp,
> unfree_compilers {watcom, msvc, borland}
> }
>
> Fixed. I'm just biased against tools that are far out of my
> price range and for which there are excellent free alternatives.
Heh... I worked in a bookstore for minimum wage (about $7.00 an hour Canadian).
It took me forever, but I -saved- my money. It was the biggest software
purchase of my life, and I've never regretted it.
> >Watcom was, and IMHO still is, *the best* optimizing compiler available (for
DOS at least).
>
> Noted. But have you tried PGCC lately?
I tried fiddling around, but the last I checked, you could use an older version
binary, or patch the sources and build it yourself. Has anyone released an
updated binary? If you've got information on this, by all means send it my
way.
I just wanted to point a few things out mostly because your derisiveness to
Watcom bothers me somewhat. It would be like me saying that DJGPP sucks
because it's free and thus can't have the level of support that a commercial
compiler can (I know, that's not the case with DJGPP, but that's probably due
to its popularity). Note that this is a mindset that quite a few people have.
AndrewJ
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