Rant: So you want help?

[Francis Corvin]

At 2010-11-06 17:00, Thomas Friedrichsmeier wrote:

>Right now one central problem with having a time gap between the compilers is
>that it will cause serious confusion. Suppose MSVC is at 4.5.3, 
>while MinGW is
>still at 4.4.4. Right now, users will
>1. select a mirror
>2. select a compiler (let's suppose user choses MinGW, here)
>3. select a release (obviously user selects the latest one, i.e. 4.5.3)
>4. select packages (but our example user will not see *any* packages, since
>there are no MinGW 4.5.3 packages)
>
>What I am suggesting is that users will
>3. select a release _type_ (stable / unstable / nightly)
>4. MinGW users will be able to select 4.4.4 packages, MSVC users will see
>4.5.3 packages.

To me the whole idea that users should have to select a compiler is 
completely ludicrous. How many decent windows installers ask you that 
sort of question? None. Who cares? No-one, users just want the bloody 
app. Which user can say what compiler was used for this or that 
application outside the KDE world? Developer might care, but let's 
not kid ourselves that it is for any other reason than their own preferences.

The underlying issue is whether KDE for Windows wants to include Joe 
Bloggs as a user, or keep itself narrowly focused on the developer 
community to the exclusion of anyone else. Perhaps it is worth 
repeating again who Windows KDE is aimed at.

That is the first issue. The second issue is that having many 
compilers available is a waste of resources. I cannot compile 
Digikam, under any compiler. What use is it to me to have myriad 
versions of MinGW, MSVC, TDM-GCC and whatnot if none of them work? 
I'd rather have one, but one that works. If everyone was forced to 
use the same, all the issues would very quickly be ironed out and we 
could spend time focusing on improving applications rather than 
fiddling with an over-engineered release system.

2c from a newbie, so probably not even worth the paper it's written on.

Francis