Managing Source Code

[martin007]

Hello.


Does any of vostros have any experience managing source code?

What tools/software do you use?

[Burgerman]

My freind who is a C programmer uses a system that is part of his programming tool. Borland C from memory.

[swalker]

For background, I was a software engineer for over 30 years before becoming disabled.

I have used dozens of source code control systems in that time.

For business purposes, I would use something else, but for my personal use I have had good luck with subversion and especially tortoisesvn (in a windows environment).

You can learn more about tortoisesvn at https://tortoisesvn.net/

There are many really good options to choose from, and what you choose depends somewhat on your requirements, the development environment you are working in, and if you are working with other people or teams.

Steve

[martin007]

To start I want to take source code from Sourceforge or Github and create a .exe for Windows.
Depending on the language of the code do I have to use one or another tool?

[swalker]

What you will need will depend on the project you download. Even then, there could be multiple options to explore.

For example, you may download a project that was developed in the java language. This could use maven as a tool to build the project and could use something like Eclipse or IntelliJ as the Integrated Development Tool (IDE).

If the project uses C#, then you would likely use Microsoft's Visual Studio.

Steve

[martin007]

Is it possible to take the source code of a Linux program and create an executable that works on Windows?

[swalker]

Is it possible? In many cases yes.

Is it practical? In many cases no!

As a software developer, I have written many programs for Linux and subsequently ported them to Windows. For some projects, it has required a few hours of work. For others, a few weeks or months of work. And, for other projects, I deemed it was simply impractical to port the project without a complete rewrite.

So, it depends. I suspect that your questions so far indicate you don't (yet) have the software development experience necessary to do such a port, even for a program that would be simple to port to Windows.

I will be glad to help as I can, but I think you might be wading into waters that are over your head.

Steve

[swalker]

Here is a link to a brief writeup by Microsoft on approaches you could consider:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/p ... w=msvc-170

Steve

[martin007]

OK.

[martin007]

Do you have any tricks to know if it is feasible to port the code of a lInux program to Windows or not to do it?

[swalker]

I do have the knowledge to quickly tell if some programs will be easy or hard to port. I can't do that for all programs, of course and the amount of time it takes depends heavily on the size and complexity of the program. You never know how hard it will be until after the port has been completed!

Graining that knowledge took me many years of working in multi platform environments.

Without that knowledge, I think it would be pretty impractical to try to figure out if something is easy to port or not.

Don't let that dissuade you. Download it, and follow the instructions on how to build it.

If it was me, I would install a Linux virtual machine on my windows box and get it working in that first.

Once I did that, I would start figuring out what it would take to port it to Windows.

You will learn a lot of new things doing this and you may not be successful.

Steve

[martin007]

After a lot of reading, I think this company is too big for me...

Sometimes there is an instruction book.

> https://chromium.googlesource.com/chrom ... uctions.md

Sometimes you have to fly alone.