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Unofficial "Tier 4" Rust Target for older Windows versions

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Re: Unofficial "Tier 4" Rust Target for older Windows versions

#41

I wish more languages support old platforms. I'm working in a company and a lot of our customers are running Windows 7 and 8, few of them running Vista. I have to use ancient versions of development tools to target those. For example stuck on Java 8 for eternity. It's PITA.

Languages that compile to C (e.g. Nim) are great on older systems. If a system has a working C compiler (or cross-compiler), there’s a good chance that it’ll just work. I’ve myself compiled Nim on Windows 7, Windows XP, and Haiku, and have run simple Nim programs on the C64 and GameBoy Advance.

Tried to use Nim with VBCC to cross-compile to Amiga, but I failed. I think Nim does some pretty heavy assumptions about the C compiler that is used to compile the generated code.

Re: Unofficial "Tier 4" Rust Target for older Windows versions

#42

I wish more languages support old platforms. I'm working in a company and a lot of our customers are running Windows 7 and 8, few of them running Vista. I have to use ancient versions of development tools to target those. For example stuck on Java 8 for eternity. It's PITA.

What kind of business are you in that you need to be able to support these platforms that have been end-of-life for quite some time? Genuine question.

Re: Unofficial "Tier 4" Rust Target for older Windows versions

#44

I wish more languages support old platforms. I'm working in a company and a lot of our customers are running Windows 7 and 8, few of them running Vista. I have to use ancient versions of development tools to target those. For example stuck on Java 8 for eternity. It's PITA.

What kind of business are you in that you need to be able to support these platforms that have been end-of-life for quite some time? Genuine question.

In my country the Government requires any salesman to have some computer for the sake of sending the info about any sell preferably immediately. I don't know why does they need this, maybe it is making easier for them buying the gold toilets. For example we still have corona-style limitations like no paying with card if the country is bombed somewhere or the businessman risks to be fined. The thing is that nobody wants to buy something more expensive than Pentium 4 or Core2duo especially because most of accounting software still does not support multithreading. So we the businessmen use to mass-buy that cheap hardware, then we install W7 as a good enough OS with no irrigating/pesky/unneeded nanny notifications. The used motherboard if dies it makes no problem, it costs $10. Believe me, the 7 is a perfect OS for self-spying to our Governments and if you want to lobby Rust into this business you have to support W7 somehow.

Re: Unofficial "Tier 4" Rust Target for older Windows versions

#46
post #39
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way some language runtimes have dropped support for Windows 7 feels outright malicious.

Malicious? It's almost 20 years old (it will be in 2029).

So why the 20 years has no outcomed anything better than 7? The result is malicious.

Re: Unofficial "Tier 4" Rust Target for older Windows versions

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Languages that compile to C (e.g. Nim) are great on older systems. If a system has a working C compiler (or cross-compiler), there’s a good chance that it’ll just work. I’ve myself compiled Nim on Windows 7, Windows XP, and Haiku, and have run simple Nim programs on the C64 and GameBoy Advance.

Tried to use Nim with VBCC to cross-compile to Amiga, but I failed. I think Nim does some pretty heavy assumptions about the C compiler that is used to compile the generated code.

Just in case you aren't in the loop, but there are gcc and llvm based Amiga cross compilers.

Re: Unofficial "Tier 4" Rust Target for older Windows versions

#48

The idea of running Rust code on Windows 95 is very funny to me. Two completely different universes colliding.

In my mind the most common cases of people running ancient operating systems are computers in control of hardware. Plenty of hardware lasts much longer than 30 years, consequently there's still stuff out there that shipped with Windows 95 and never got new drivers. If you want new software for that environment Rust sounds like a great choice

Indeed. Though these days, some prefer older Windows as the new ones are abjectly worse, along all the axes they care about.

Re: Unofficial "Tier 4" Rust Target for older Windows versions

#49

I wish more languages support old platforms. I'm working in a company and a lot of our customers are running Windows 7 and 8, few of them running Vista. I have to use ancient versions of development tools to target those. For example stuck on Java 8 for eternity. It's PITA.

Why? That effort is far better spent on developing new things and taking advantage of modern hardware.

People need to upgrade. I'm surprised any machine running Vista could even use the modern web.

Re: Unofficial "Tier 4" Rust Target for older Windows versions

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not hard to do either, especially on Windows where backwards-compatibility is almost completely guaranteed. Of course those in the planned obsolescence mindset would fight hard against it, because then it would be harder for us to take the good without the bad.

I really hate my bakery, the buns are only edible for some days, after that, they grow mold! Without sarcasm, it is entirely reasonable that when the OS is EOL by the 1st party, software support for it by 3rd party also ends soon after that.

Unlike buns, software doesn't deteriorate
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