XPost: alt.comp.os.windows-10   
   From: nospam@needed.invalid   
      
   On Wed, 10/29/2025 5:39 PM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:   
   > On Wed, 29 Oct 2025 13:43:09 +0000, J. P. Gilliver wrote:   
   >   
   >> On 2025/10/28 23:14:21, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>> You have the choice. You can download things and build from source.   
   >>   
   >> That seems to crop up more often than I'd expect. I don't think I've   
   >> _ever_ had to "build from source" for Windows things ...   
   >   
   > Windows doesn’t make it easy, or even reliable. Which is why the   
   > (mis)conception is widespread that you need a PhD in CompSci, or something   
   > like that, to do it on Linux.   
      
   A journey of a thousand miles, starts with a single step.   
      
   From my MINGW home folder.   
      
   $ cat bobble.c   
      
      
   #include    
      
   /* gcc -o bobble.exe bobble.c         # default optimization */   
      
   int main(int argc, char** argv)   
   {   
     printf("ARGC is %d\n", argc);   
      
     for(int i = 0; i < argc; i++) {   
        printf("ARGV[%d] is %s\n", i, argv[i]);   
     }   
      
     char line[BUFSIZ];   
      
     fputs("\nTo quit the program, press the return key now", stdout);   
     fflush(stdout);   
     fgets(line, sizeof line, stdin);   
      
     return 0;   
   }   
      
   $  gcc -o bobble.exe bobble.c   
      
   There, I've compiled a Windows program. The program   
   happens to be pointless, but it's a program. I've achieved   
   something. Now, I just have to learn to program :-)   
      
   If you're in Visual Studio instead, you can ask for the   
   Window template, and that gives you a program that opens   
   a rectangular window frame. And they give you the code   
   to do that. Then, you pop in your printf statements   
   or whatever :-)  See, easy peasy.   
      
   In MINGW, a package that has a Makefile, I can run   
   "make" and it does all the compiler calls for you, and   
   you don't have to be all that clever to do one of those.   
      
   And if you need little code snippets to experiment with,   
   there is rosettacode for examples. There might be some C code   
   here, to print the digits of Pi .   
      
   https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Pi   
      
   You can also have the AI write you some code. With   
   no guarantees the code works, and then your   
   skills as a debugging person are more important   
   than your skills as a programmer. One program I asked   
   the AI to write, it was pretty well entirely rewritten   
   by the time I was finished with it. Nothing wrong with that,   
   as the AI version is the "salt" to get you started. It has   
   enough programming constructs in it, to teach you a little bit.   
      
      Paul   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)