Mar
07
2006

Windows Development

I Wanna Use Linux!

(Add / View Comments) (0)Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - 09:59:18 pm
(Posted Under: Geek, Programming)
Windows Development - what a contridiction in terms. Once of my latest projects is to write a Winamp General Plugin to write statistics on what is played to a mysql database. One of the uses for this will be to automatically fill in the Now Playing thing on this here my blog.

It's been so long since I've built anything under Windows. There is a reason for this. What a pain in the ass! (It's hard to believe from 1998 - 2003 most of my coding was done under Windows). An absolutely pain in the ass. Watch me go running, sucking firmly on my thumb, to my nice, fuzzy and dev friendly Linux box!

Getting the base Winamp plugin in stuff done was pretty easy. I did that last night, save a problem with gen_ml.dll (the Media Library plugin) stealing a Windows message that I wanted to capture. Fixed easily enough by making sure I hook into window proc after gen_ml.dll. It's been a while since I've looked at writing Winamp plugins, or building anything under Windows for that matter. A couple of tweaks to lcc, remembering how to do DLL exports properly, and I was on my way.

Tonight after working around the pesky gen_ml.dll problem, I knew I could move onto the easy stuff - the writing data to mysql - y'know, the real work, but straight forward stuff. No more of the time wasting dicking with exports and linking, making sure the plugin loads, just pumping out code....

...Uhhh, except for the lack of a mysql client import library. I freakin' hate Windows stuff. Yes, I have to screw around with that crap before I can start doing that code. Such a foreign freakin' concept, being so used to just including the headers and linking against the library in Linux - because both the headers and libraries are just there - or if they aren't, are after a simple emerge of mysql. I can't live without the Linux way of doing stuff anymore. I can't bare that the dev stuff isn't just there to do what I want, just by whipping up a quick Makefile and typing 'make'.

God knows what I need to do to compile in mysql support under Windows. I've downloaded the mysql source (which is more than I want - I just want the mysql client import library), which I'll no doubt have to sift through and try make work (or less daunting, get the prebuilt DLL and generate an import library from it). But what a pain in the ass! I just want to write my damn code damn it, I don't have time for this!

It's times like this that I realise how I take Linux for granted, and see it as the way things are. It only takes 5 minutes trying to do something in Windows to highlight that it's certainly not, it's just the way things should be. The UNiX world is just a haven, where you are spoilt by a great environment, not the norm. Sometimes I think I miss writing programs for Windows. I'm pretty sure I do not. [wink]
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