Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 08:22:39 -0700 (PDT) From: "Louis P. Santillan" To: DJ Delorie cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: DJGPP: the future is... ? In-Reply-To: <199904090246.WAA27504@envy.delorie.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com X-Mailing-List: djgpp AT delorie DOT com X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com Precedence: bulk I think DJ might be on to something. I'm a CS major at my university and since I got here I've been trying to open eyes of the people in the CS department to Free/Open Software like DJGPP/CygWin/MinGW/NASM (the latter for the intro x86 ASM class). Hopefully today I'll make a break through as I am giving a workshop on simple VGA/Mode 0x13 programming in DJGPP. I plan to release a mini-version of DJGPP similar to EZ-GCC (or was it EZ-DJGPP) so that people can compile my code. I already have a distributions done (been lazy to put it on the net) and it fits on to 3 floppies (GCC, GAS, LD, & DJDEV only, no docs). I think if we could provide something like DJ suggested to universities and high schools in a "presentable form" like what RH, SuSE, Debian, Slackware have done, these institutions would grab the distribution. If someone starts such distribution, I'd be willing to make it into a Zip Disk distribution as well as a floppy disk distribution. DJ and other have also mentioned that the suggested ideas would take the DJGPP community to steps that make it a similar environment to Linux which to me is a GREAT thing. Imagine writing games independent of DOS or Linux using RHIDE and Allegro!!! The compiler/library implements the necessary methods for the X API for the given OS and you dont have to worry portability problems. What most programmers want is a one standard that they work with and extend like Linux. If we give DJGPP programmers that same options as Linux programmers (I'm NOT saying implement Linux on DOS), we have a common, standard, GPL/OpenSource, API and ANSI/POSIX LibC that does most things needed by the programmer. Another I want to toss onto the BBQ is porting Cygnus's Java compiler from the EGCS distribution. Given enough time, we should be able to atleast write Java console apps in DJGPP. Louis On Thu, 8 Apr 1999, DJ Delorie wrote: > [SNIP DJ's GREAT IDEA ABOUT DISTRIBUTION!!!]