skeeto / skeeto/w64devkit

Feedback request on potential name change: i686 to w32devkit

Open
#81 1 comment 3 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Dominant language
C
Stars
4.8k
Forks
381
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

I'm considering renaming the "i686" variant to "w32devkit". On my systems I keep both 64-bit and 32-bit toolchains side-by-side and I rename the latter locally in order to tell them apart. For releases I'd rename both the zip and the top-level directory. I'm also dropping the "mini" variants since the difference has become so little. That makes for these four build artifacts:

  • w32devkit-x.y.z.zip unzips to w32devkit/
  • w32devkit-fortran-x.y.z.zip unzips to w32devkit/
  • w64devkit-x.y.z.zip unzips to w64devkit/
  • w64devkit-fortran-x.y.z.zip unzips to w64devkit/

I like that the names are simpler and more concise, and that I can unzip 32-bit and 64-bit versions side-by-side without intervention. The 64-bit builds are unchanged, so no disruption there.

My concern is that some people, especially newcomers, have trouble navigating (and even finding!) GitHub's "Releases" page. The default and least specialized build is w64devkit-x.y.z.zip, and by sheer luck, it currently sorts to the top, ignoring source.tar. However, with the rename it will be 5th in the list, counting .sigs, which is a less obvious download. Though perhaps I could kill two birds with one stone by putting download links in README.md — or get around to finally building a simple, official website where I control navigation.

I've long wished it was possible to blend releases, by, say, unzipping one atop the other, or putting both in PATH. The buried toolchain would be accessible by its architecture triple (e.g. i686-w32-mingw32-gcc). Renaming the 32-bit toolchain would make merging an installation more difficult. However, even in the relatively simple PATH case, the buried toolchain is confused about which tools to use, and I haven't yet figured out how to fix it.

(Side note: I've also considered not building Fortran releases — while still maintaining the variant patch — but there are a substantial number of users, notably the llama.cpp community, so it's worth continuing.)

Feedback welcome.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the current GitHub Releases presentation and README.md, then compare the proposed w32devkit artifact names and directory layout with the existing release assets. Done means an agreed naming and packaging decision, with any resulting release navigation or README changes explicitly defined.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
c, cpp, fortran
Domain
build-system, release
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.