Development virtual machine

[Licho]

I think this thread is pretty pointless. I will delete the image.

Its like:

A: Hey, lets do it simpler for new developers!
B: Yeah I also have problems with it, count me in if you do it.
C: If you have problem with it you are not smart enough to be a developer
D: It's simple enough, I had it in 10 min.
E: You would had it already If you didn't waste time talking here!

[Tobi]

While I agree that making it easy to develop is important I think the `real' solution is someone keeping vclibs and the MSVC project file up to date (as it was done in the past), as in my experience any serious development in a VM kinda sucks.

Also I think that if it is made easy to do Spring development in a Linux VM on Windows then it is like throwing MSVC compatibility out of the window, because even less people will be inclined to try it & keep it up to date.

IF that is kept up to date then it SHOULD only be a few steps to get Spring to compile on Windows:

• Download & install VC++ Express Edition (thats next->next->finish IIRC)
• Download & install msysgit (next->next->finish too)
• git clone git://github.com/spring/spring.git
• Download & extract vclibs in the spring source dir (note: vclibs could be moved to git too to make it easier to keep it up to date)
• Open the solution file (rts/build/vstudioX/rts.sln) and build/run/debug

Given the size the VM would probably get those few steps would probably be quite a bit faster too on anything but the fastest internet lines

EDIT: Hmm you might need the Platform SDK and/or DirectX SDK too, I don't exactly remember. Might also be different with MSVC 2010, which I personally never tried on Spring.

[hoijui]

as usual, Tobi gets it quite right there.
what i don't get is...
zerver is constantly updating the VS project files, and others sometimes supply patches. i have the feeling that quite some are using VS to compile spring master version all the time. i also told Licho (and others) to talk to zerver, which i believe uses VS for spring deving.
maybe what i want to say is...
making it easy to start deving (with VS) sure is a good thing, but it has to be done and maintained by one or multiple VS devs in the first place, to be available to others. there is no way around that, and it is kind of only VS users to blame if they feel it is not easy enough already.

Before the crown we wear, there is the cross that we must bear.

[Beherith]

Currently it takes only 2 extra steps compared to tobis writeup: remove dsound.lib (which is odd that that dependency did get removed a while back, but it crept back in, even though its unneeded) and a minor fix to Color.h. Ill try to build current play version and see if it syncs.

[Andrej]

Using portable git from here: http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/downloads/list
The "Windows ZIP" download of CMake: http://www.cmake.org/cmake/resources/software.html
Automated MinGW command-line downloader: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/f ... mingw-get/

set_up.bat script downloads MinGW, gets spring source with git and runs cmake.
rebuild.bat script compiles.

http://www.mediafire.com/?tf6z674cw42z4p7

Only tested on my windows2000 box