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Comment by kibwen | Hacker News Reader

  > Wasn't this release supposed to finally offer a Windows 
  > package which works out-of-the-box?

Nope! No idea where you got that impression.

  > Who is in charge of the Windows port?

We keep asking for people knowledgeable about Windows to step forward and lead the effort to port us off MinGW and onto MSVC, and none ever have. Would you like to volunteer? :)

To clarify, the goal is to be using the native Windows toolchain by 1.0, if at all feasible. Servo has to work on Windows, after all.

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I just started looking at Rust and like what I see so far. I may be able to help; I worked on the Windows port of Go and put together the MinGW build environments as well as the binary installers.

If someone can point me to a list of outstanding issues/requirements and a contact person it'd be much appreciated. Note, I've already found this https://github.com/mozilla/rust/issues/8996 and this https://github.com/mozilla/rust/issues/1237.

I'm assuming the workflow notes at https://github.com/mozilla/rust/wiki/Notes are up to date?

I personally don't know what's necessary now, but if you feel like joining #rust or #rust-internals on irc.mozilla.org (which I recommend :) ), then vadimcn and klutzy are the people to talk to. (IRC handles match their GitHub names.)

...doing it now.

Installing Go on windows was a breeze.. thanks =)

Thanks for offering! I'd suggest that you make a post to the mailing list for maximum visibility:

https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/rust-dev

HN comments and IRC chats tend to get lost in the shuffle without always attracting the attention of the devs.

I think using LLVM's native tool chain will end up being more feasible, fwiw.

Indeed, I'd love if LLD somehow matured in time for Rust 1.0. But I have no idea what their timeframe is.

Please don't depend on MSVC. Why not simply bundle the needed MinGW parts?

Please don't depend on MinGW. MSVC is the best supported compiler toolchain on Windows. Use it.

It's also horrible, but Arelius is right, it's the best option.

What's so horrible about it?

It's a very mature toolchain, and has better modern (C++11) support than the version of G++ on my Linux box.

The Express version restricts distribution of the binaries created with it IIRC. Also it's quite a heavy download compared to MinGW.

Please keep in mind that I'm not comparing writing C++ programs with MinGW vs. VC++. Rust just needs a linker for some tasks, which should be lightweight.

No one is suggesting that it should be the exclusive supported toolchain.

It may strictly be a larger download than MinGW, but it's certainly less painful and confusing. Sure, Rust may just need a linker, but MinGW is anything but lightweight.

It sure is the best option for C++ Windows development, but not for Rust to depend on and use.

But having to install the entire mingw toolchain is also clearly not the best for Rust to depend on and use.

Perhaps part of the problem is perception.

When people download an exe installer on Windows, they generally expect it to install something that works out of the box.

Please note that I am not saying it should be expected that there is a one-click (or double- as it were) solution for Windows at this point, I am just saying that people might ge t that impression from the download link on the front page, and the fact that it is an exe installer.

Perhaps if you put it in a zip -- I am sure the people who can find and follow the notes for installing the rest of what is required can handle zip.

Just noticed that pressing the exe download link on the front page actually takes you to the wiki entry now, that's helpful.

I'd love to help with this, but I'm under the impression that this would also require getting llvm working properly under msvc, which just sounds like an immense task.

What about packing the required libraries in the installer, instead of forcing everyone to play Lego with versions, as starting point?

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