I Fixed Windows Native Development

I shipped a Windows app a year or so ago which is cross-compiled from Linux. The clang+lld toolchain just works if you have a copy of the MSVC and Windows SDK libraries to point it at. xwin is a handy tool which automates downloading and unpacking those.

It was a bit fiddly to setup the first time, but it works surprisingly well otherwise.

This article looks like it had some effort put into it, but unfortunately there is an undisclosed coauthor who made it worse:

Saying “Install Visual Studio” is like handing contributors a choose-your-own-adventure book riddled with bad endings

The “ghost” environment

The build.bat above isn’t just a helper script; it’s a declaration of independence from the Visual Studio Installer

No Visual Studio installation. No GUI. No prayer. Just a script that does exactly what it says.

This is fantastic work. Love it.

I haven't had to use Visual Studio or Windows for a few years, but if I have to jump back in, I'll be sure to give this a try!

Would code targeting Linux demand a specific version of gcc and glibc headers?

When writing for Windows I'm trying to support whatever versions developers have, which seems to be the way things work outside Windows.

When Visual Studio Installer came out, my whole office was amazed at how much faster it was than the installer in Visual Studio (they used to be bundled). It hasn’t been an issue for me since.