Post #408512
2026-02-22 21:44 UTC
I had to build a Windows app (for scientists...) and while we do love to complain a lot about fragmentation and all the issues we have on Linux: Windows is a different kind of hell, with fragmentation just being at a different spot!
Creating CI for Windows was absolute hell, vcpkg is nice, but without caching slows down automation a lot, trying to build an MSI package was a very bad idea (what a crazy design from a Linux perspective!), getting anything reproducible isn't easy... 1/2
Replies (1)
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@matk@mastodon.social 2026-02-22 21:49
...so, therefore, huge shoutout to MSYS2 which was my salvation in so many ways! Automating Windows builds was really easy, and for the actual build steps I could even use a familiar UNIX-y environment, while still getting a fully native Windows binary out. Not sure why I didn't use this sooner for past projects! Of course, the Linux builds of the same app were up and running in seconds, thanks to distro packages and great CI 😉 2/2 https://www.msys2.org/