Public Impressions

[Martin Pool]

On 05/05/2006, at 11:36 PM, John Arbash Meinel wrote:

> (I hit send too soon)
>
> 4) Windows support. I know we support windows, but none of the main
> developers stays logged in to a Windows machine, and runs it every  
> day.
> I don't know if we can get someone to do this or not. Depending on  
> what
> happens next in my life, I might end up doing Windows dev, and I could
> provide some of this.

Right, we have a language and have tried to make architectural  
decisions that will support Windows well, but are suffering some  
accidental problems because of not getting that kind of testing.

> We have a good resource in Alexander, since not only does he run on
> windows, but he also runs in a non-utf8 and non-latin1 encoding.
> Which helps ferret out all of the places we make incorrect  
> assumptions.

Part of the issue is that fixes from Alexander have taken too long to  
come in.  In general I try to reproduce the problem fixed by a patch  
to evaluate it.  But if the problem is only on Windows then it tends  
to wait until I can run it there, which may be a while, and there is  
a negative spiral.  Much better to have some people maintaining  
Windows support, and review their patches but not block them.

I for one would be happy to give Alexander PQM access, if he wants it.

PQM itself is not quite ideal - pushing and then sending mail is a  
bit indirect and creates a little extra work.

-- 
Martin