2009-03-11, 16:56
phi2039 Wrote:One last point of note, since we have ventured completely off topic here, is that 'Windows' is not just one OS. XP and Vista (and now Win7) have significant differences, particularly in their handling of graphics and sound. This means that we are effectively developing on 2 (3) different platforms and must take all of the inconsistencies into account. I would love to use the new API's introduced in Vista, but the would leave XP users in the cold.I'm glad you mention this, as I think it's a major hurdle to overcome, especially in a situation where developers are a rare commodity.
I would strongly favour a decision to stick to one supported OS. I'm using XP SP3, but if you really believe Vista minimum would make your life easier... why not? Again, there are few Win developers, to have them spread their precious time on multiple OSes is really not the right thing to do.
I suppose for all multimedia purposes Vista will be compatible with Windows 7. If that would not be the case... then it's an even tougher choice. But I seem to remember that the new foundations were all layed out on Vista.
BTW, my long time prediction is that Windows will sooner or later fork to a different "thing". Something like Plex, DirectX based and everything. The audio-video side with SDL seems to be a pain for everybody, unfortunately (due to OpenGL and DirectX implementation problems, not our XBMC developers).