[ofa-general] RE: [ofw] RE: porting IB management code to Windows

[Roland Dreier]

I don't really have much of a stake in this, but it seems to be that
it's probably a good idea to question the assumption that a single
codebase shared between Linux and Windows is really a good idea.  It's
definitely appealing to be able to reuse the code that has been written
for Linux, but in the long term trying to keep a single C codebase for
such different OSes is probably way more trouble than it's worth.

The real problem is that no one seems to use C for native Windows code,
let alone all the POSIX library environment stuff.  If you want to write
cross-platform stuff it probably makes more sense to use a language that
is really supported on both platforms -- Java, C#, Python or even C++
would probably be better choices.

Of course this would require a lot of work rewriting things in a new
language, but if you're really serious about supporting Windows as a
first-class platform, I don't think trying to get Linux C code working
with a bunch of #ifdef-ery is ever going to get you there.

 - R.