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Handhelds Hardware

GCC C/C++ Compiler Ported to WinCE 41

Posted by michael from the spare-time dept.
An anonymous reader writes "This interview at WindowsForDevices is with a young Russian programmer who earlier this year launched a project to port the open source GCC C/C++ compiler and supporting tools (library, manager, linker, etc.) to Windows CE and the Pocket PC platform. The result, according to Vitaliy Pronkin, the project's founder, is that it is now possible to develop applications directly on a Pocket PC PDA using the standard C/C++ programming language. Specifically, source code written in eVC (MFC isn't supported yet) can be built and then executed directly on the Pocket PC (or other Windows CE device) without conversion or additional runtimes. Find it, fix it, compile it, run it -- right on your Pocket PC!"
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GCC C/C++ Compiler Ported to WinCE More

GCC C/C++ Compiler Ported to WinCE

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  • Open source for CE (Score:2, Interesting)

    by chochos ( 700687 )
    Hopefully this will open the door for porting and developing many open source applications on CE. It would be interesting to see an open IDE, maybe an eclipse plug-in or something.

    • Re:Open source for CE (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      That'd be a worthwhile effort, especially since Microsoft eVC and eVB tools are free and available for download.


  • Does Cygwin run on WinCE?

  • Ok, a Diebold machine runs WinCE. We now have GCC for WinCE.

    election council: What's votehack.exe? Issit some new program thingie?

    I wonder who's winceing about that one, eh?

    "This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane."
  • Anyone else parse that as something to WinCE at?

  • Ick. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Piquan ( 49943 ) on Friday October 17, 2003 @02:37PM (#7242875)
    I tried writing C on my Palm (which has had a natively hosted compiler for years). It was not fun at all. Same goes for the more lightweight languages, Scheme and Forth, even though they were better.

    I think I'll stick with a dev platform.

    • I'm not one for C at all, so perhaps I'm not the best to answer this, but anyway-

      Yes, it'd suck ass to write just about any code on a Palm, especially an older one, 160x160 screen and Graffiti. But, there are WinCE devices out there with very good keyboards- I know, because I've used them for development myself, although I've done the coding in Squeak Smalltalk and Perl. Hell, during the last 12 months, I've probably written at least 60% of all the code I've written (and tested) all on a PDA, including a

      • Re:Ick. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by great throwdini ( 118430 )

        Yes, it'd suck ass to write just about any code on a Palm, especially an older one, 160x160 screen and Graffiti. But, there are WinCE devices out there with very good keyboards.

        Why anyone would contemplate writing any large amount of code directly on any of the above-named devices is beyond me, integrated keypad or no. Writing a little Forth now and then on a Palm device (with stylus even!) isn't too bad, but again, we're talking small pieces of program logic.

        OTOH, one can always write the programs

        • Seems to me ... (Score:2, Interesting)

          by torpor ( 458 )
          ... that there is a huge market here, for a *smart* PalmOS-based development tool.

          You may not want to write C code (lord, I would default to (void *) for everything!) but I'm sure there are ways to approach PalmOS application-development in a "PalmOS GUI"-like manner...

          It seems to me that a good test of a GUI system is how well that GUI system supports continued development of apps for that system ... well, s/GUI/user interface/ ... I mean, for text-mode user interface style interaction, a text-based prog
        • Some WinCE devices and Linux PDA setups make writing coding on them just about as convenient as doing it on a desktop. There are- and have been for a while- WinCE devices with good keyboards, touch-typable ones that don't require taking along something external. Writing code on something like that is just as easy as on the desktop. Since I'm not using a language like C or Java, with relatively long compilation times, the speed of the device I'm using isn't a big issue, as long as it's something around a
      • Hell, during the last 12 months, I've probably written at least 60% of all the code I've written (and tested) all on a PDA

        Excuse the term, but that's fucking crazy. You know that you can telnet into a zaurus? And you know there's a very good VNC server package so you can test GUI stuff with a real mouse?

        I've written some code for the Zaurus (custom database-type app). I ended up actually writing and testing a good portion of the code on the device itself, but I would have gotten nowhere flat with

        • In fact, this was one of the two big reasons we went with the Zaurus for this app instead of Pocket PC, since that's not really possible with Pocket PC

          What do you mean? I'm ssh'd into my iPaq right now.

          • What do you mean? I'm ssh'd into my iPaq right now.

            Right, but your iPaq isn't running the OS it came with :)

            No big deal for a personal device, but I needed to get my app out "into the field" PDQ - no time to tweak kernel cross-compile options, boot off CF or figure out what's changed with hardware revisions.

    • I use my sharp zaurus for C and Python development regularly. I plan to cross compile G++ in the near future.

      Nearly anything I need in Linux I can just cross compile from my iBook or server. I've got the necessary development tools, a decent (if not perfect) keyboard, a good text editor, and the same console evironment that I'm used to. 64mB of usable (non-ramdisk) ram also helps.

      Palms are organizers and WinCE devices are toys. Stick Linux on it and make it a dev platform.
    • Ive not seen it for pocketPC.. would be interested in looking at it...
  • What about the PalmOS port?

    • Re:But.... (Score:3, Informative)

      by RevAaron ( 125240 )
      Umm, I doubt a POS port of GCC will be possible until at least POS 6. Unless someone wrote a new C compiler and just happened to also call it "GCC," there's about zilch chance of GCC ending up on POS. The OS is primitive, whereas WinCE and Linux for the PDA (both with gcc ports) are "real" OSes in most senses of the word. Make jokes about WinCE as you may, but it has real multitasking, decent memory management, etc. Can you imagine doing a port og GCC that manages to confine itself to the 64KB (in POS 5.

      • Re:But.... (Score:3, Funny)

        by Josh Booth ( 588074 )
        Is your calling Palm OS "POS" as in Piece Of Sh*t intentional or just because you needed an acronym?

        +1 Funny if the former, +1 Informative if the latter.
        • Well, both I suppose. Mostly because it's shorter than writing PalmOS, but to an extent, PalmOS is a POS. I'm aware of the coincidence, and use it with that knowledge. However, the purpose of my post was not to call PalmOS names with nothing to back it up.

      • Re:But.... (Score:3, Informative)

        by Trillan ( 597339 )

        Woah, you're really off here.

        Palm OS hasn't been limited to 64k blocks for several years now EXCEPT for resources. Palm OS 3.5 and later all support large allocations.


      • In the same sense as this article has used it, meaning, "run GCC on the device," yes, that would be difficult. GCC demands very few features from the host, but they do have to be there.

        In the sense that most compiler developers mean it, "running GCC to produce code for the device, even though GCC is actually running on [something else]," that's much more common, and much easier.

  • When people cheerlead for the Zaurus, and I made a reply pointing out that all of those things can be done on the Zaurus, the one thing that I couldn't come back that WinCE did as well with was a C compiler. All of the other stuff- SSH, VNC, writing code, etc- can be done on WinCE, and in some cases is actually done better on WinCE than it is on the Zaurus. For instance, writing, compiling and viewing LaTeX docs- it's easy to do on WinCE, with a decent app that integrates it all, but on the Zaurus, you're stuck with a lot of configuring and writing code in vi rather than integrating with the Qtopia environment. Eww.

    Someone did a port of GCC to MIPS/WinCE a while back, but since everyone is using ARM processors now a days, that was pretty useless. NOt sure of the usefulness of this project, but certainly someone will get something out of it!

    I for one do a fair amount of coding all on the WinCE device, never needing to get a desktop to intervene. No, I don't have a Windows desktop. Smalltalk, Python, Java, Perl/tk and a number of other languages are all available on WinCE- meaning you can do development without a Windows desktop or MS SDK.
    • What Perl/tk is available for WinCE/PocletPC?
      • Not sure what you mean- what version? 6.6 is the package I was using, although should be workable with the newest- PerlCE was rolled into the main distr. Anywho, you can get it here [rainer-keuchel.de].
        Worked pretty well for me- I used it on Handheld PC 2000 (WinCE 3.0-based) and on PocketPC 2000 and 2002 (both WinCE 3.0-based too).

        PerlCE at Rainer's site [rainer-keuchel.de].
      • doh!

        That was the package I used to use- and I should say that it worked quite well. Worked better on a device with 32 MB or more of RAM- Tk sucks a lot of it. It worked fine on a 16 MB unit, but seemed slower to start up. The download is pretty thin, not too many modules come with it. I simply copied the modules from a desktop installation of the same version. I had a bunch of new whacky Tk widgets and everything. Can't remember which it was, but I ran a little database app in Perl/Tk and it worked sw
    • When people cheerlead for the Zaurus, and I made a reply pointing out that all of those things can be done on the Zaurus, the one thing that I couldn't come back that WinCE did as well with was a C compiler.

      Yeah, but who cares? The Zaurus's Qtopia environment is almost as limiting as WinCE's environment.

      With an X11-based handheld, you can really plug it in, log in remotely, and use it like a real machine. Neither the Zaurus nor WinCE machines come close.

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