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>You pretty much have to go out of your way to make a language that won't run on Windows.

That's a bit ridiculous. In the group of most desktop operating systems, Windows is the odd ball. Supporting it is a huge hassle, and from a certain point of view with a very small ROI.

I wonder why the Swift threads have far fewer complaints about missing Windows support. Perhaps the absurdity is more obvious in that case?



> In the group of most desktop operating systems, Windows is the odd ball.

Hilarious considering it is, by far, the most used desktop operating system. It's almost like there's a reason small languages stay small...


>Hilarious considering it is, by far, the most used desktop operating system.

You think so? The latest Stackoverflow survey says otherwise: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#technology-_-...

"Linux 53.3%, Windows 50.7% MacOS 22.2%"

Yes, since the question is slightly open, this could refer to target platforms instead of what the actual developers are using on their desktops. Still, a nice-looking datapoint ;)

Anecdotally, as an IT chief I see developers who use Windows struggle with tasks that are simple in Linux and MacOS. There's a reason why a) MacOS won so many developers and why b) Microsoft is spending so many resources making WSL/WSL2.


Each one picks the survey it suits them best.

> For October 2019 the Linux gaming population on Steam according to Valve was about 0.83%, basically flat compared to September, at least on a percentage term. Meanwhile for the newly-published November figures it comes at 0.81%, or a decline of 0.02%.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Steam-Su...


Yeah, that's a good point, given how Crystal might very well work as a language for making games.


Swift is Apple garbage and there is no expectation it would run on anything outside of iOS.

Crystal not working on Windows indicates to me that are implemented the run time idiotically-- should have just reused the C and C++ run time & standard libs, as this would have given them portability from the get go.

Exposing Win API or .NET is unnecessary, just allow users to call into C code for that nonsense.


Swift runs on Linux just fine. There are web frameworks in swift. Tensorflow is working on Swift support [2]. Yes it is Apple supported but it’s open source and runs plenty of places besides iOS. You may still think it’s “garbage” but you’re misinformed about where it can be used.

[1] https://github.com/vapor/vapor [2] https://www.tensorflow.org/swift


Swift is a corporate-backed language, and everyone knows Apple is trying to lock-in customers (both users and devs).




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