Windows Development For Unix Coders?

lgritz asks: "I've developed almost exclusively on various brands of Unix for the last 12 or so years, but am in an unfortunate predicament where some of my software needs to run under Windows also. I continue to develop mainly under Linux, but need the software to port and I find that my knowledge of Windoze is so sketchy that I spend way too much time screwing around with it. I think this is mainly because I just don't know the equivalent nomenclature and idioms. Does anybody have a good reference (a book, preferably) that's specifically meant to introduce Windows programming to experienced Unix programmers? Something that'll tell me, for example, which VC++ compiler options are roughly equivalent to the things I use under Unix, or what the equivalents to dlopen is, or how to launch another process at the end of a pipe, and so on? I'm looking for roughly the equivalent of Stevens' "Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment," except geared toward showing me the equivalent idioms in Windows-ese."

Re:M$ INTERIX

[gavinhall]

Posted by 11223:

MKS toolkit also provides a POSIX environment (which is really what you're looking for). If you're not targeting 9x (only NT), it's got quite a bit of POSIX in it itself (supposedly everything up to the fork(), kill(), etc. process management falls).

Advanced Windows

[poohbear_honeypot]

Advanced Windows (3rd Ed) by Jeffrey Richter
ISBN: 1572315482

About 40$


---
Joseph Foley
Akamai Technologies

Cygwin

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely you must know that Cygwin [cygnus.com] provides POSIX emulation under Windows....

M$ INTERIX

[aygh]

If you don't mind letting Bill into your home, you could use INTERIX by Softway Systems (who have been bought by Microsoft last year), which - as far as I recall - used to be called OpenNT some time ago. It is an environment to develop, port and/or run UNIX applications on/to Windows.
Look it up at http://www.interix.com/NewInter ix/main_overview.htm [interix.com]

I have had very little experience with the product, so this more a mention than a recommendation.


Greetings

C++ Builder

[Betcour]

Well if your app need a GUI (which is often the case in Windows...) you might want to look at C++ Builder from Borland : it will let you reuse the core of your programs in C, and you can build an interface around it without much knowledge of the (ugly) Windows API. Although C++ Builder has the same wrappers as Delphi, which means you can do low level stuff (sockets etc...) without bothering with the details of Windows implementation.

Using INTERIX

[benenglish]

The Internal Revenue Service runs an all-SCO Unix OSR 5.0.4 network for field collection officers. Everything, from the laptops to the servers, is 100% text-based. There's no X running anywhere; the users see only menus generated by shell scripts. The system is fast, stable, reliable and very easy to administer.

The Revenue Officers who use the system have all gone through the same phases.
Phase One: What the hell are you doing giving us this outdated, ugly technology?
Phase Two: OK, if I have to use it I will, but I won't like it and it probably won't work, anyway. How can any computer without a mouse be any good?
Phase Three: Hey - this thing works OK!
Phase Four: Try to take away my system and I'll kill you!!!

Now the powers-that-be have taken a short break from their continual bowing and praying to Redmond for just long enough to require that all officers must be equipped with laptops running WinNT. (The servers are being left untouched for now.) The chosen method to port our dozens of applications is Interix. Prototyping starts late this year and production rollout is scheduled for Spring, 2001. There are literally billions of dollars at risk if this thing screws up.

My point? If the same question is posted a year from now, I'll be able to give one whompin' good example of how this stuff works in the real world.

Personally, I view the changeover with some trepidation. As an SA, I get a slower, less reliable OS for my users and more network traffic. My ability to do desktop administration (which I try to help out with) goes out the window. The only upside is that the execs in Washington get to brag about how they are creating a homogeneous environment that should lead to more consistent administration procedures.

I hope I turn out to be wrong and everything winds up being peachy-keen. But for now, I'm not looking forward to this.

Good book

[sumner]

Addison-Wesley Win32 System Programming. It tells you how to do all the typical systems stuff, up to mmap and advanced IPC. There's a chart in the back that has mappings from Unix syscalls to their Windows equivalents and vice-versa. Their Win32 Socket Programming book is also rather good. Sumner