Status Meeting (November 2020)

[Colin Finck]

> Visual Studio 2010 is the last version that works (or almost works)
>
> on ReactOS [...]
> 2. Dropping useful features is not really a good idea at all.

Oleg, nobody wants to take away any features here. VS2010 will continue 
to run on ReactOS now and in the future. This discussion is merely about 
*compiling ReactOS* with VS2010.

Everyone, please put personal preferences aside and think about the big 
picture:
We don't have the workforce Microsoft had when creating Windows XP.
The only way we can ever create a compatible OS is by leveraging modern 
technologies not yet available back then and building on the open-source 
work third parties have already done for us.
If we however decide to limit us to 10-year-old technologies now, we can 
do neither. Don't expect us to ever get this project into a usable state 
in a lifetime then.
The future of the project is at stake here!

I don't want to repeat myself, so let me just link to the reasoning I 
already gave:
* https://reactos.org/archives/public/ros-dev/2020-December/019158.html
* https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/2658#issuecomment-619540076
* https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/2658#issuecomment-629498043
* https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/2658#discussion_r427615924
* https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/2658#issuecomment-631113317

Best regards,

Colin Finck

I unfortunately don't get to contribute much anymore due to other commitments, so my view has little weight here, however I just wanted to throw my support behind Colin here in his effort to move the project forward.

Personally, I'd love to see reactos move to more modern standards, allowing more emphasis to be placed onto modern C++ and the benefits it brings:
- Support for scoped resources and RAII
- Better type checking
- Stronger use of const correctness
- Range based loops
- Use of bool and nullptr instead of BOOLEAN/BOOL and NULL
- Even use of the thing I hate the most ... auto 😊
- STL in user mode
- vectors, lists, etc
- NATVIS support to make the above easy to debug
- etc, etc, etc

I'm not advocating that these should be requirements, or to ever try to push devs to make use of them, but it would be incredibly useful to give developers the option if they prefer, as so many developers no do.

If it were me, I'd be tempted to drop VS2015 support too, only ever supporting the last two major toolchains from any compiler.

Ged.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ros-dev [e-mail] On Behalf Of Colin Finck
Sent: 02 December 2020 08:07
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [ros-dev] Status Meeting (November 2020)
> Visual Studio 2010 is the last version that works (or almost works)
>
> on ReactOS [...]
> 2. Dropping useful features is not really a good idea at all.

Oleg, nobody wants to take away any features here. VS2010 will continue 
to run on ReactOS now and in the future. This discussion is merely about 
*compiling ReactOS* with VS2010.

Everyone, please put personal preferences aside and think about the big 
picture:
We don't have the workforce Microsoft had when creating Windows XP.
The only way we can ever create a compatible OS is by leveraging modern 
technologies not yet available back then and building on the open-source 
work third parties have already done for us.
If we however decide to limit us to 10-year-old technologies now, we can 
do neither. Don't expect us to ever get this project into a usable state 
in a lifetime then.
The future of the project is at stake here!

I don't want to repeat myself, so let me just link to the reasoning I 
already gave:
* https://reactos.org/archives/public/ros-dev/2020-December/019158.html
* https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/2658#issuecomment-619540076
* https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/2658#issuecomment-629498043
* https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/2658#discussion_r427615924
* https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/2658#issuecomment-631113317

Best regards,

Colin Finck

[Magnus Johnsson]

Just a question from the outside here. If we look forward instead of
backwards, what work would it take to make *just the command line build
tools* work on reactos for newer versions?
Is that something to strive for? Is there a missing API, is it
fundamentally incompatible in some way, is reactos 'target windows version'
wrong..?

Den ons 2 dec. 2020 kl 11:14 skrev [e-mail]:
> I unfortunately don't get to contribute much anymore due to other
> commitments, so my view has little weight here, however I just wanted to
> throw my support behind Colin here in his effort to move the project
> forward.
>
> Personally, I'd love to see reactos move to more modern standards,
> allowing more emphasis to be placed onto modern C++ and the benefits it
> brings:
> Support for scoped resources and RAII
> Better type checking
> Stronger use of const correctness
> Range based loops
> Use of bool and nullptr instead of BOOLEAN/BOOL and NULL
> Even use of the thing I hate the most ... auto 😊
> STL in user mode
> vectors, lists, etc
> NATVIS support to make the above easy to debug
> etc, etc, etc
>
> I'm not advocating that these should be requirements, or to ever try to
> push devs to make use of them, but it would be incredibly useful to give
> developers the option if they prefer, as so many developers no do.
>
> If it were me, I'd be tempted to drop VS2015 support too, only ever
> supporting the last two major toolchains from any compiler.
>
> Ged.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ros-dev [e-mail] On Behalf Of Colin Finck
> Sent: 02 December 2020 08:07
> To: [e-mail]
> Subject: Re: [ros-dev] Status Meeting (November 2020)
> > Visual Studio 2010 is the last version that works (or almost works)
> >
> > on ReactOS [...]
> > 2. Dropping useful features is not really a good idea at all.
>
> Oleg, nobody wants to take away any features here. VS2010 will continue
> to run on ReactOS now and in the future. This discussion is merely about
> *compiling ReactOS* with VS2010.
>
> Everyone, please put personal preferences aside and think about the big
> picture:
> We don't have the workforce Microsoft had when creating Windows XP.
> The only way we can ever create a compatible OS is by leveraging modern
> technologies not yet available back then and building on the open-source
> work third parties have already done for us.
> If we however decide to limit us to 10-year-old technologies now, we can
> do neither. Don't expect us to ever get this project into a usable state
> in a lifetime then.
> The future of the project is at stake here!
>
> I don't want to repeat myself, so let me just link to the reasoning I
> already gave:
> https://reactos.org/archives/public/ros-dev/2020-December/019158.html
> https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/2658#issuecomment-619540076
> https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/2658#issuecomment-629498043
> https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/2658#discussion_r427615924
> https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/2658#issuecomment-631113317
>
> Best regards,
>
> Colin Finck
>
> Ros-dev mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev

[Hermès BÉLUSCA-MAÏTO]

A detailed investigation would be needed for sure, but I am currently thinking about two things:

- some Vista+ functions being used (for example: GetTickCount64, some functions using the SRW locks …)

- the possible usage of apisets dlls.

In any case in order to cope with that in ROS, we would need the forwards-compatibility layer (almost) fully implemented, that can “activate” the support for these Vista+ features at runtime, for any program that requires it.

From: Ros-dev [e-mail] On Behalf Of Magnus Johnsson
Sent: 2. prosinca 2020. 17:22
To: ReactOS Development List [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [ros-dev] Status Meeting (November 2020)

Just a question from the outside here. If we look forward instead of backwards, what work would it take to make *just the command line build tools* work on reactos for newer versions?

Is that something to strive for? Is there a missing API, is it fundamentally incompatible in some way, is reactos 'target windows version' wrong..?

Den ons 2 dec. 2020 kl 11:14 skrev <[e-mail] mailto:[e-mail] >:

I unfortunately don't get to contribute much anymore due to other commitments, so my view has little weight here, however I just wanted to throw my support behind Colin here in his effort to move the project forward.

Personally, I'd love to see reactos move to more modern standards, allowing more emphasis to be placed onto modern C++ and the benefits it brings:
- Support for scoped resources and RAII
- Better type checking
- Stronger use of const correctness
- Range based loops
- Use of bool and nullptr instead of BOOLEAN/BOOL and NULL
- Even use of the thing I hate the most ... auto 😊
- STL in user mode
- vectors, lists, etc
- NATVIS support to make the above easy to debug
- etc, etc, etc

I'm not advocating that these should be requirements, or to ever try to push devs to make use of them, but it would be incredibly useful to give developers the option if they prefer, as so many developers no do.

If it were me, I'd be tempted to drop VS2015 support too, only ever supporting the last two major toolchains from any compiler.

Ged.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ros-dev <[e-mail] mailto:[e-mail] > On Behalf Of Colin Finck
Sent: 02 December 2020 08:07
To: [e-mail] mailto:[e-mail] 
Subject: Re: [ros-dev] Status Meeting (November 2020)
> Visual Studio 2010 is the last version that works (or almost works)
>
> on ReactOS [...]
> 2. Dropping useful features is not really a good idea at all.

Oleg, nobody wants to take away any features here. VS2010 will continue 
to run on ReactOS now and in the future. This discussion is merely about 
*compiling ReactOS* with VS2010.

Everyone, please put personal preferences aside and think about the big 
picture:
We don't have the workforce Microsoft had when creating Windows XP.
The only way we can ever create a compatible OS is by leveraging modern 
technologies not yet available back then and building on the open-source 
work third parties have already done for us.
If we however decide to limit us to 10-year-old technologies now, we can 
do neither. Don't expect us to ever get this project into a usable state 
in a lifetime then.
The future of the project is at stake here!

I don't want to repeat myself, so let me just link to the reasoning I 
already gave:
* https://reactos.org/archives/public/ros-dev/2020-December/019158.html
* https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/2658#issuecomment-619540076
* https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/2658#issuecomment-629498043
* https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/2658#discussion_r427615924
* https://github.com/reactos/reactos/pull/2658#issuecomment-631113317

Best regards,

Colin Finck

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