Re: Roadmap for a Win32 port - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

On Wed, 2002-06-05 at 16:33, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> OK, I think I am now caught up on the Win32/cygwin discussion, and would
> like to make some remarks.
> 
> First, are we doing enough to support the Win32 platform?  I think the
> answer is clearly "no".  There are 3-5 groups/companies working on Win32
> ports of PostgreSQL.  We always said there would not be PostgreSQL forks
> if we were doing our job to meet user needs.  Well, obviously, a number
> of groups see a need for a better Win32 port and we aren't meeting that
> need, so they are.  I believe this is one of the few cases where groups
> are going out on their own because we are falling behind.
> 
> So, there is no question in my mind we need to do more to encourage
> Win32 ports.  Now, on to the details.
> 
> INSTALLER
> ---------
> 
> We clearly need an installer that is zero-hassle for users.  We need to
> decide on a direction for this.
> 
> GUI
> ---
> 
> We need a slick GUI.  pgadmin2 seems to be everyone's favorite, with
> pgaccess on Win32 also an option.  What else do we need here?
> 
> BINARY
> ------
> 
> This is the big daddy.   It is broken down into several sections:
> 
> FORK()
> 
> How do we handle fork()?  Do we use the cygwin method that copies the
> whole data segment, or put the global data in shared memory and copy
> that small part manually after we create a new process?
> 
> THREADING
> 
> Related to fork(), do we implement an optionally threaded postmaster,
> which eliminates CreateProcess() entirely?  I don't think we will have
> superior performance on Win32 without it.  (This would greatly help
> Solaris as well.)
> 
> IPC
> 
> We can use Cygwin, MinGW, Apache, or our own code for this. Are there
> other options?
> 
> ENVIRONMENT
> 
> Lots of our code requires a unix shell and utilities.  Will we continue
> using cygwin for this?
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> As a roadmap, it would be good to get consensus on as many of these
> items as possible so people can start working in these areas.  We can
> keep a web page of decisions we have made to help rally developers to
> the project.
> 
> -- 
>   Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
>   pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
>   +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
>   +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
> 
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Is it worth looking at how the mysql crowd did their win32 port  -
(or is that intrinsically a _bad_thing_ to do..) ?

(I am guessing that is why their sources requires c++ ....)

regards

Mark