Windows distribution viability

[Simon Gornall]

Hi folks,

I’ve been a Mac engineer for the last couple of decades, and now I find myself looking at writing something that will work on both Windows and the Mac. If it were just for me, (from reading around) I think it’d be quite straightforward - just install MSYS, the GNUstep packages, and start running with it, but I might want to distribute this application in the future, and I’m cautious about requiring a GNUstep install as a part of that, it seems like a reasonably high bar.

In fact, I’ll be using SDL (3, if it matters) for the graphics side (which is cross-platform), what I’m really after here is the runtime and Foundation framework that I’ve come to know and love - even better if it has ARC :) 

I found https://github.com/gnustep/tools-windows-msvc but it’s not clear whether this results in something I can package up (binary, DLLs in the same directory  etc.) and have an easy-to-use install.exe that means the end-user doesn’t have to install GNUstep, or whether it depends on filesystem layout etc (as I recall GNUstep needing, from using it a long while ago).

I have read a fair number of “it’s hard to get it working on Windows” posts/articles but I’m hoping these are a bit self-selecting - people who did struggle and wrote about it doesn’t mean that everyone struggles… They’re also a bit older, and I’m (again) hoping things keep improving :) 

Anyway, and info/hints from people who’ve done something like this would be appreciated - I’m at the stage where I’m planning stuff, and I don’t want to paint myself into a corner. There’s always the option of using C++. But… you know… :)

Cheers

   Simon