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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">If some person or group of people is
willing to administer and maintain windows build/testing boxes for
the good of the Haskell community (perhaps even just for core
infrastructure and an extended set of "blessed" libraries), I
would be willing to contribute a decent sum to the procurement of
these machines. I'm sure I am far from alone in this. It would be
a very good use of our community resources to co-ordinate such
efforts.<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
Gershom<br>
<br>
On 11/20/12 9:21 PM, Clark Gaebel wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CA+aES6O+znTG-X7iDFpFysGy13f-kMU9ykrwsCMK6Ht_=-kuEw@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite"><font face="verdana,sans-serif">+1 to this. The
friction of finding, setting up, and using Windows isn't even
comparable to just sshing into another unix box and testing
something quickly.<br>
<br>
As a university student, I also find it relatively rare that I
get to test on a Windows machine. My personal computer runs
linux, my technical friends run linux or osx, and my
non-technical ones run osx. Also, all the school servers that I
have access to run either FreeBSD or Linux.<br>
<br>
If I want to run something on linux system, I have about 40
different computers that I can ssh into and run code on.<br>
<br>
If I want to run something on osx, I just have to call a friend
and ask if they can turn on their computer and allow me to ssh
in (to my own account, of course).<br>
<br>
If I want to run something on Windows, I have to track down a
friend (in person!), ask to borrow their computer for a few
hours, get administrator access to install the Haskell Platform,
get frustrated that HP hasn't been upgraded to 7.6, and give up.<br>
<br>
It's just not practical, especially for the large amount of
small (<500 LOC) packages on Hackage.<br>
<br>
- Clark<br>
</font>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 9:05 PM, Erik
de Castro Lopo <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:mle+hs@mega-nerd.com" target="_blank">mle+hs@mega-nerd.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="im">Albert Y. C. Lai wrote:<br>
<br>
> Clearly, since >90% of computers have Windows, it
should be trivial to<br>
> find one to test on, if a programmer wants to. Surely
every programmer<br>
> is surrounded by Windows-using family and friends?
(Perhaps to the<br>
> programmer's dismay, too, because the perpetual "I've
got a virus again,<br>
> can you help?" is so annoying?) We are not talking
about BeOS.<br>
><br>
> Therefore, if programmers do not test on Windows, it
is because they do<br>
> not want to.<br>
<br>
</div>
I have been an open source contributor for over 15 years.
All the general<br>
purpose machines in my house run Linux. My father's and my
mother-in-law's<br>
computers also run Linux (easier for me to provide support).
For testing<br>
software, I have a PowerPC machine and virtual machines
running various<br>
versions of Linux, FreeBSD and OpenBSD.<br>
<br>
What I don't have is a windows machine. I have, at numerous
times, spent<br>
considerable amounts of time (and even real money for
licenses) setting<br>
up (or rather trying to) windows in a VM and it is *always*
considerably<br>
more work to set up, maintain and fix when something goes
wrong. Setting<br>
up development tools is also a huge pain in the ass. And
sooner or later<br>
they fail in some way I can't fix and I have to start again.
Often its<br>
not worth the effort.<br>
<br>
At my day job we have on-demand windows VMs, but I am not
officially<br>
allowed (nor do I intend to start) to use those resources
for my open<br>
source work.<br>
<br>
So is it difficult for an open source contributor to test on
windows?<br>
Hell yes! You have no idea how hard windows is in comparison
to say<br>
FreeBSD. Even Apple's OS X is easier than windows, because I
have<br>
friends who can give me SSH access to their machines.<br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
Erik<br>
--<br>
----------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
Erik de Castro Lopo<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.mega-nerd.com/" target="_blank">http://www.mega-nerd.com/</a><br>
</font></span>
<div class="HOEnZb">
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