# Seeking software development partners



## RobertPHeller (Jul 18, 2015)

Hello, I am Robert Heller (Deepwoods Software). I have an Open Source package for model railroading: The Model Railroad System -- Model Railroad System | Deepwoods Software. I do my development work under Linux and have been providing built binaries ("ready-to-run") of this package for Linux, MS-WIndows, and MacOSX, as well as providing the package in source form. Since I don't use MS-Windows or MacOSX I am not really able to support either operating system well. At this point, the Mac Mini I use to build MacOSX is very out-of-date (it is too old to run the current release of MacOSX. I use a cross-build environment for build for MS-Windows, since I don't have a computer that is running MS-Windows. The bottom line is that I cannot realistically support either O/S well, so I am going to drop providing binaries for either O/S. The code _should_ build natively under MacOSX and does build in a cross-build environment for MS-Windows, but I realize most MS-Windows an MacOSX users are not techies and so might not be able or willing to build from source, so I am looking for one or more fellow computer programmers who are also model railroaders to take on the task of building for these operating systems and help me support these operating systems.

So, if you are a software developer, familiar with C/C++ and Tcl/Tk and MS-Windows and/or MacOSX and willing to take on the task of building binaries of this software and answer questions from other modelers about this software, I would like to hear from you.


----------



## cfurnari (Aug 2, 2020)

Robert,

I am a retired programmer, knowledgeable with MS Windows, and some knowledge of C. PM me, and we can discuss.


----------



## Severn (May 13, 2016)

Visual studio community edition is good and it's free. Although you already know that probably.

When you open up the configuration area it appears to have an option to build linux software. I'm not at all sure what this means.

Anyway the other popular choice to building linux software in windows for windows that is linux based is mingw tool chain.

Know little about macos except I thought it was linux variant under the hood. Don't know much or anything about macos tool chains.

The other popular compiler I've heard of is clang.

Anyway just providing a little info that I know which might not be useful.


----------



## RobertPHeller (Jul 18, 2015)

Severn said:


> Visual studio community edition is good and it's free. Although you already know that probably.
> 
> When you open up the configuration area it appears to have an option to build linux software. I'm not at all sure what this means.
> 
> ...


I don't have a machine running MS-Windows and have no interest or intention of getting a MS-Windows machine -- I am looking for someone else to deal with that. I never learned MS-Windows and have found that I am not really able to help people who bring MS-Windows problems to be -- MS-Windows is a strange beast that I find nearly impossible to work with. I don't really like pointy-clicky interfaces in general and not at all for non-graphical tasks -- I am a hard core CLI / terminal person -- it is what I learned, starting with Model 33 teletypes and moving on to VT-52s, VT100s, VT220s, and now xterms.

And yes, I know all about the mingw tool chain -- I have a VM with the mingw tool chain installed on it. That is not the problem -- I have the tools to cross build for MS-Windows. What I lack is any real experience with MS-Windows and I am thus not able to answer questions from MS-Windows users. I need someone who is able to answer MS-Windows questions and even better track down MS-Windows specific bugs -- at least one of my programs has a problem that only shows up under MS-Windows -- the Linux version works without problems, so I have no way of debugging or have any answer other than to say the use case fails under MS-Windows -- all I can do is hand-wave and tell that user to just use the Linux version on a Linux system.

MacOSX is based on Darwin, which is a BSD UNIX variant (not Linux, but also POSIX). Once one gets past the pointy-clicky, it is _similar_ to Linux. It is just that MacOSX only (legally) runs on Apple hardware and Apple hardware is terribly expensive -- I cannot afford to spend $1K for a machine just to build software on once or twice a year -- it just isn't cost effective for a free Open Source project. Linux runs on _cheap_ PC hardware and _even cheaper_ ARM SBCs like $35 Raspberry Pis.


----------



## Severn (May 13, 2016)

I'm not sure I have time to do it Building it is easy enough probably. But answering questions and so on also takes time ...

Just a rpi 4.. haven't tried it yet. I've had a 3 for awhile.


----------



## gregc (Apr 25, 2015)

RobertPHeller said:


> So, if you are a software developer, familiar with C/C++ and Tcl/Tk and MS-Windows and/or MacOSX and willing to take on the task of building binaries of this software and answer questions from other modelers about this software, I would like to hear from you.


sounds like more of a customer interface than a developer.


----------



## RobertPHeller (Jul 18, 2015)

gregc said:


> sounds like more of a customer interface than a developer.


Yes and no. I need someone to build MacOSX and MS-Windows binaries and I need someone to test and support the MacOSX and MS-Windows binaries. This includes making sure the build process for these O/S is up-to-date and creates up-to-date builds, which includes builing with a current release of MacOSX and possibly a 64-bit version of MS-Windows and possibly using a "native" build tool chain under MS-Windows. And yes, I need support people for MacOSX and MS-Windows.


----------



## Severn (May 13, 2016)

I'm going to try to build it just to see but if I can't do it today, the first opportunity will be next weekend likely.


----------

