Re: [ANN] Idle pre-alpha released

[Thomas Lauer <thomas.lauer@...>]

Michael Broughton <mbobowik@telusplanet.net> wrote:

<quoting repaired>

> Ketmar Dark wrote:
> > On Fri, 27 Jul 2007 10:45:25 +0100
> > Thomas Lauer <thomas.lauer@virgin.net> wrote:
> >
> >   
> >> This version is only available for Windows 2000 and later. Although a
> >> Linux/Unix version would certainly be possible, there are currently no
> >> plans to do such a version.
> >>     
> > bad news... no *nix version ever?
>
> Uh, there is a *nix version... it's called Lua. Do a Google search. :D

While this specific statement is debatable, the general attitude nicely
illustrates why I won't do a *x version anytime soon. The average Linux
user tends to be more knowledgeable about the technical side of things
than the average Windows user. I daresay that a much bigger percentage
of Linux users knows how to use a C compiler or Perl than users on the
Windows side (most of whom wouldn't recognise a C compiler if it stared
them in the face).

Clearly, Linux users will more often than not be able to mix and match
these things in ways most Windows users simply won't. Put differently, I
know people who would love to work with a "real" scripting language such
as Perl or Python but for whom the idea of installing and getting to
grips with such a huge package seems a complete nightmare.

(BTW, that's also one of the reasons why I was and still am putting some
effort into what I hope will eventually be a smooth and nearly complete
documentation.)

Another observation to keep in mind is that almost 90% of non-robot hits
for idle.thomaslauer.com come from Windows-based machines, ~7% is *x
traffic and the rest is Macs and goodness knows what.

Take these two points together and it should be clear that doing a Linux
version is not exactly a high-priority task. While the code is (mostly)
written in a portable manner, that doesn't necessarily mean the whole
project would be easy to port. Especially given my utter lack of
experience with Linux system programming:->

-- 
cheers  thomasl

web : http://thomaslauer.com/start