Re: encapsulating directory operations

On 2025-05-23, James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:

On 5/22/25 19:15, Kaz Kylheku wrote:
...

POSIX is fairly decently supported on Windows by Cygwin.

>
Ignoring for the moment the different between "fairly decently" and
"fully, Does everyone who uses Windows do so, 100% of the time, through
Cygwin? I believe not - so POSIX is not in universal use.

It doesn't matter because you can ship the POSIX run-time with
your solution; you don't have to rely on Windows having that
pre-installed.

POSIX is a kind of language: C language extension libraries as well as
some utilities built on them. (The utilities are not always of interest
in the context of a C program being ported to a platform via POSIX.)

No computer speaks POSIX natively; something must be installed.

It's just another language run-time.

Some systems integrate the POSIX run time; they are built around
it from ground up. Some systems need an extran run-time for it.

Windows doens't come with Java either; that doesn't prevent Java
application delivery targeting Windows.

Speaking of which, I have better application delivery than Java on
Windows than with Cygwin-based libraries. It's just .exe and .dll
files: native Windows stuff, self-contained in its own installation
directory.

Java programs usually ask users to install Java first, which is ugly and
unprofessional. (Write once, nag everywhere?)

--
TXR Programming Language: http://nongnu.org/txr
Cygnal: Cygwin Native Application Library: http://kylheku.com/cygnal
Mastodon: @Kazinator@mstdn.ca