Date:	Tue, 7 Sep 1999 15:15:16 +0200 (IST)
From:	Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
X-Sender:	eliz AT is
To:	"P.B. Davis" <davis AT voeding DOT tno DOT nl>
cc:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject:	Re: DJGPP/RSXNTDJ vs Mingw32
In-Reply-To:	<01bef923$ac0a99a0$9b77dd86@PC0776.voeding.tno.nl>
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Reply-To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
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On 7 Sep 1999, P.B. Davis wrote:

> If the line of argument includes the
> (originally Unix) tools bundled with DJGPP, I shall have to be convinced
> that similar tools do not exist in a the Windows universe.

Win32 ports of GNU tools do exist (albeit not all of those available 
under DJGPP), but there are disadvantages in using them.

The problems mostly are that the Win32 ports are scattered and use vastly 
different compilers to port them.  This makes the development environment 
fragile, since the tools don't work together well.  Unix-style file-name 
globbing and command-line quoting, support for asynchronous subprocesses 
and pipes -- these are some of the areas where you should expect problems 
and incompatibilities when you gather tools ported by different unrelated 
activities.

You can use Cygwin ports of GNU tools for development.  These do present 
a coherent environment that works together well, but it (a) has subtle 
annoying bugs for someone whose ``native'' environment is Windows, and 
(b) you need a large DLL to use them.

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