Is Pelles C a dead fish?

[defrancis7]

Thanks Ralf for the answer.

[czerny]

It is often needed to work with COM objects in windows.
To support Pelles C it would be best, to show people how to use COM-objects with plain C.

[CommonTater]

Just a quick question:  Does a C/C++ compiler compile an all C source program the same way that a  C only compiler does?  If I remember correctly, are there not a handful of C functions that behave differently under C++?  So, (asking it another way), when a C++ compiler finds one of the functions, does it compile the code as it would under C++ or C?

Give these a read...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibility_of_C_and_C%2B%2B
http://david.tribble.com/text/cdiffs.htm

[migf1]

Nope, that's not true! gcc is a pure C compiler (g++ is a pure C++ compiler). Let me remind you (or inform you, if your are not already aware of it) that GCC was originally an acronym for "GNU C Compiler", exactly because it was exactly a C compiler only (I was using it as a student back then, in late '80s). Support for other languages came later on, and thus the GCC "interpretation" was changed to "GNU Compiler Collection".

So gcc does not "just happen" to compile plain C, it is a pure C compiler. g++ is a C++ compiler that happens to compile some plain C code (as most c++ compilers do).

Sorry, you are missing the point here...
Yes, GCC/gcc stands for quite a while for "GNU Compiler Collection", but my point is if you feed a mix of C and C++ code to it (g++ as the executioner, AFAIK at least since GCC4, there is no separate C compiler executable anymore), it will happily do so, unless you get wild with command line switches to force "C only". That doesn't not fit IMHO the definition of a pure C compiler...
Not to mention that none of the GCC compilers is in fact a true Windows compiler either, the all need to use a crutch of a *ix porting library to produce Windows programs...

MinGW32 and all its variants/distributions, e.g. MinGW64, TDM, etc are producing native Win executables, and that's all that should matter in the context of this discussion, or so I think.

Likewise, yes GCC has unified many languages under the same umbrella, but it does use separate "front ends" for each language (that's how it calls them). At the end of the day, we don't really care how a C compiler works internally, and how many languages it supports, as long as it provides one or more ways to built a C specific executable, that is suffering the minimum possible "unification" overhead. In any case, the heart of GCC beats in much more C rates than C++, but again I think that's irrelevant in this discussion.

There isn't another straight C compiler out there (ok, lcc, which Pelle's C in based on in the past) for Windows...

That's not true either! You may wish to have a look at this Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compilers#C_compilers.

So, which one to be precisely? At least considering the same price tag and functionality...

Ralf

lcc, tinyc, portable c are pure c compilers.

But why should they be straight C? That's beyond me! mingw, watcom c, digital mars c, vs express have been used for pure C production on Windows for a long time, despite being C/C++ compilers. I fail to see what the problem is. It's not like I have suggested that Pelles C should include C++ (have I? LOL).

[migf1]

I would like to expose some of my personal opinions in the hope they will be taken into consideration.
PellesC is a compiling suite created by Orinius Pelle a very smart swedish guy, who by himself wrote a bunch of software producing a very nice development environment targeted to MS world.
Pelle aim over all these years has been to stay as tight as possible to MS standards. The point was: whatever C project made for MS win (desktop or CE) should strightforfward compile on his suite.
Pelle also want not move to C++.
He offered the whole software free for any use, and in the meantime got some money selling sources to those who want them.
To free users was asked just to help development by testing code and reporting bugs.
While I don't know what would be the conditions if you buy sources (I mean if any support is included), for free use, even if donation was made, it should have been clear that the product was offered 'AS IS owned software'.
Pelle always programmed his suite as he liked, apparently accepting some suggestions and refusing many others. I said apparently because what was accepted in the 99% of cases was something present on MS suit.

His first long absence from the forum was when, very excited by the new IA64-AMD64 architecture, finally come back with a 64bits version.

Then maybe the decreasing interest in C projects from MS, maybe personal problems (his father had heart problems last year), maybe work and whatever else made him busy elsewhere.
Anyway this product is Pelle's child and he has the right to do with it whatever he wants, although he never let users with an outdated version (one that doesn't include all features to compile with last MS-WIN version).
Maybe he is working on Win8 

Finally if you like PellesC suite you must take it as is..... 

Nice post! However, it just states what we already know. The original question was about our thoughts regarding helping Pelles C to become more popular, and I think this post does not help towards that direction.

Pelles C is a great piece of software, especially considering it's an one man project. But according to CommonTater (the original question poster) is not as popular as it should be (which is pretty much an established fact). We have been asked to present our thoughts about what will help it become more popular.

[migf1]

In a more general context (that is, without commenting on specific quoted posts) let me add to my original POV that Pelles-C is a very closed project in almost all aspects.

It relies on its own ide, its own libs, its own run-time, its own debugger, its own everything. This is quite understandable for an one man project, because it helps Pelle in having everything under control, and maintaining the project on his own. The AddIns are the only way provided for 3rd party support.

That was fine, as long as C was still fairly used for Win32 development, and as long there was not too much of a competition. Nowadays, things have changed drastically, as I have already presented in this topic. What Pelles C offers is no longer handy, trendy and/or unique. Being a very self-centric project does not really help in becoming more popular in todays standards.

For a moment (or more) lets forget about open source, cross-platform, etc. How about supporting project importing from other popular IDEs of today (e.g vs, code::blocks, dev-c++, netbeans, eclipse, the more the better). Or how about supporting popular CVS (git, mecrurial, etc)? Or how about a central place on the net for uploading/downloading installing/uninstalling AddIns from within the IDE? How about implementing stuff like Dev-C++'s devpacks

Most of these stuff are the norm nowadays in most (if not all) serious development environments. The IDE itself could also benefit from some improvements too (like enhancing the editing capabilities for example, or like being able to move/auto-show sidebars and panels).

All in all, I can think and I have presented lots (and heterogeneous) of reasons of why Pelles C is not popular. Some of those can be implemented externally, others require access to the source code. The main question is how and who will be convinced to invest its free time on such things, since they are already available in a plethora of Pelles C's alternatives.

[frankie]

Nice post! However, it just states what we already know. The original question was about our thoughts regarding helping Pelles C to become more popular, and I think this post does not help towards that direction.

Maybe I was not clear enough 

PellesC is Orinius Pelle Product and he cand do whatever he wants!
You can only use it or not.
What to do to make it more popular? Write something usefull with PellesC project included, people to fast compile will download the suite and, if they like it, and like to program in WINAPI with plane C, maybe they will use it also in future 

PellesC++ actually seems to not be an option, in the future? The future of the suite is in Pelle's mind. 

[frankie]

It relies on its own ide, its own libs, its own run-time, its own debugger, its own everything. This is quite understandable for an one man project, because it helps Pelle in having everything under control, and maintaining the project on his own. The AddIns are the only way provided for 3rd party support.

Have you minimally considered that he sells the source?

[migf1]

Maybe I was not clear enough 

PellesC is Orinius Pelle Product and he cand do whatever he wants!
You can only use it or not.
What to do to make it more popular? Write something usefull with PellesC project included, people to fast compile will download the suite and, if they like it, and like to program in WINAPI with plane C, maybe they will use it also in future 

PellesC++ actually seems to not be an option, in the future? The future of the suite is in Pelle's mind. 

Of course it is Pelle's call. It couldn't be any other way. Still, how does this elaborate on the original question about why Pelles C is not popular? Or how does this help in making Pelles C considered a serious modern development environment?

Have you minimally considered that he sells the source?

Yes, it doesn't have to go open-source (nor cross-platform). There are so many other things mentioned by all of us in this thread.

But let me ask you this, have you minimally considered that nowadays closed projects do not motivate enough people in contributing to them? Too many commercial companies use/modify open-tools anyway, when their license allows them to (like gcc for example). This in turn increases the popularity of those open-tools.

[frankie]

But let me ask you this, have you minimally considered that nowadays closed projects do not motivate enough people in contributing to them? Too many commercial companies use/modify open-tools anyway, when their license allows them to (like gcc for example). This in turn increases the popularity of those open-tools.

Yes I have considered.
But I'm not interested in compiler developmet so *I don't care about the compiler sources*..
My sources can be used with *any* C compiler.  PellesC IDE is nice I will use it, tomorrow I would use codebloks or eclipse or whatever....
Maybe is not clear what is the difference between: compiler - environment - IDE 
Anyway I'm no more interested in this topic...

[akko]

Just a quick question:  Does a C/C++ compiler compile an all C source program the same way that a  C only compiler does?  If I remember correctly, are there not a handful of C functions that behave differently under C++?  So, (asking it another way), when a C++ compiler finds one of the functions, does it compile the code as it would under C++ or C?

For instance, my own main project is in plain vanilla ANSI-C for portability reasons (to embedded systems), there is no C++ code. For prototyping I am much more productive with Pelles C than with MinGW or Visual Studio. Reason: Pelles C is lightweight, fast, and offers all the tools that I need.

What else do I need to say that Pelles C is very alive here? Just because I contribute only occasionally to this forum, it is no "dead fish".

[CommonTater]

Hi Frankie...

Maybe I was not clear enough 
PellesC is Orinius Pelle Product and he cand do whatever he wants!
You can only use it or not.

Nobody is suggesting that Pelle change the project or even change his goals.  I think most of us are quite happy with the "Feature Requests" and "Bug Reports" forums as improvement based channels. 

What I am suggesting is that we do what Vortex recently did ... HERE ... and make useful stuff available as separate downloads... The core project remains 100% under Pelles control (which suits me fine, btw) but now there's more a programmer can do with it.
 
That is... I believe the big reason it's fallen to disfavour --viewed mostly as a "beginner's tool"-- is that we users haven't gotten in there and fleshed it out... If we consider Pelles C, core project, as a "starting point" instead of as "the be all and end all" things look quite different...

What to do to make it more popular? Write something usefull with PellesC project included, people to fast compile will download the suite and, if they like it, and like to program in WINAPI with plane C, maybe they will use it also in future 

Yes, writing examples is a good idea. 

[CommonTater]

What else do I need to say that Pelles C is very alive here? Just because I contribute only occasionally to this forum, it is no "dead fish".

Here too, akko.  I used Pelles C daily as my main programming environment from 2004 to last fall when I sold off my commercial source code and retired.  I've used to to write everything from tiny little console utilities all the way to a full blown parts inventory system with custom data bases. Pelles C is VERY alive around me.

However; our interests do not make a trend... I'd bet if you surveyed the people here, very few of those contributing to even this thread *actually use Pelles C* as a serious development tool. Like most, they see it as less than capable and are working in other IDEs or other Languages.  This is what I'm hoping to understand...

I know the compiler is fully capable as is the linker and assembler... but the headers and libs are incomplete, some IDE improvements would be helpful (hense some of my AddIns)... yet nobody seems to want to chip in and help flesh it out. Only a couple of us are actively contributing AddIns, only half a dozen are making Contributions... and the downloads of these things are generally in single digits. 

You and I using it as, I'm sure, Pelle would want to see it used --while a good thing-- probably aren't all that persuasive in the future of the project.

[CommonTater]

Ok... 6 pages of discussion and no closer to a concensus... 

What I see is that Pelle's pet project is largely taken as is and used by very few who can work exclusively within it's limitations...

MigF1 is correct that it relies upon it's own IDE, Compiler, Debugger etc.  This I think is a good thing.  It's a tightly knit package that works very well together. 

Frankie is right in that Pelle is the sole arbiter of the project's future.

But I see nothing that says we can't *add* to the project with our own downloadable modules of headers & libs to flesh out the Windows API support, or 3rd party libs to improve support in other areas... In fact, I'm dissapointed to see there's no ambition to do this at all... I've contributed several of my own libraries, custom controls, AddIns etc. to the project because it seems the right thing to do ... Pelle has given us this wonderful gift, so I try to return the favour with whatever little gifts I can...

Pelles C may not be a dead fish, but I get the feeling it's not very far from it...

[akko]

It is not unlike many other good programming environments that have become "vintage" with time.

Pelle has invested a huge amount of his productive lifetime into his toolchain. If you have spent your life behind a microscope, you are bound to wake up one fine day finding your hair has gone gray and one of a few reamining summers is in front of your door...

Then it's about high time do some housekeeping and go for a nice long walk.