Operating system for engine development?

[Tord]

I'm surprised I'm the first macOS user so far. Almost all the non-chess developers I know use macOS.

[mvanthoor]

I'm surprised I'm the first macOS user so far. Almost all the non-chess developers I know use macOS.

The only reason to use MacOS is to actually have a Mac around to be able to test your engine. If I can't find some way to cross-compile my engine for the M1 (granted, I'm not looking very hard), I'm not even going to try and make such a version. (And even if I can cross-compile, I can't test it so I probably won't release it.) I can cross-compile versions for Linux, Raspberry Pi and Windows, and test them either by just installing Linux for free in a VM, buying n RPi for €50 or a Windows system builder version for €50, but for a Mac I'd need to shell out €900. Not going to happen.

And I think many people think the same way.

[pedrojdm2021]

For C/C++ Chess engine development, all you need is Linux And a good C/C++ compiler.

But if you are targeting . net framework. or you plan to develop some kind of application / game that uses your chess engine, then windows i think is a better option.

btw i see the C/C++ chess engines a pretty fun adventure

[dangi12012]

I have found Visual Studio to be superiour in C++ development.
Since VS Code is catching up fast I think the operating system does not matter as much as people think anymore.

Anyways it has been proven for chess: http://www.talkchess.com/forum3/viewtop ... rs#p914167
that CLANG is the superiour compiler in terms of binary.

Clang runs on Windows and Linux.
Visual Studio Code runs on Windows an Linux

IMO the OS does not matter anymore.
If you prefer a specific way of developing (ie VIM) its your choice really. For me its windows - because then I can game from time to time all games without any problems.

[wickedpotus]

I'm surprised I'm the first macOS user so far. Almost all the non-chess developers I know use macOS.

Why surprised? Most Chess-engine-developers like openness, loathe proprietary stuff and artificially produced vendor lock-ins, driven by business reasons rather than technical reasons. Also, they know poor price/performance when they see it... You cannot blow marketing fairy dust onto chess players as easily as "influencers" on youtube...

I think there is a good reason you never see Linus Torvalds carrying a macbook around

[Karlo Bala]

I used MS-Dos, now Windows. Started with Turbo Pascal/C/C++, and for the last 20+ years, I'm using VS. Never liked Linux. I like to install OS, then VS, and start writing programs. I'm too old to customize OS, compilers, editors, etc. I just want a solution out of the box, without spending too much time on irrelevant things.

[mvanthoor]

I used MS-Dos, now Windows. Started with Turbo Pascal/C/C++, and for the last 20+ years, I'm using VS. Never liked Linux. I like to install OS, then VS, and start writing programs. I'm too old to customize OS, compilers, editors, etc. I just want a solution out of the box, without spending too much time on irrelevant things.

20 years ago, you would have been right.
10 years ago, you would have been somewhat right.
But now, you could just install something like Linux Mint, add VSCode, and be done with it. You'll be able to write (at least) C, C++, and Python3 programs. With a few commands for installing the correct compilers, you could also write Go, Rust, and many other programs without changing a single setting.

[benb]

I'm late for the poll, but I recently installed Ubuntu as dual boot on a cheap 4-gig ram Win10 laptop. I've been using the free Embarcadero 32 bit C++ compiler in a CLI window, and gcc/g++ in cygwin for a few years. g++ on Ubuntu runs five times as fast, which really surprised me. I'm going to stick with "real" linux and only boot Windows for a very few applications - unless they run on Wine, then I won't look back.

[Bo Persson]

I'm late for the poll, but I recently installed Ubuntu as dual boot on a cheap 4-gig ram Win10 laptop. I've been using the free Embarcadero 32 bit C++ compiler in a CLI window, and gcc/g++ in cygwin for a few years. g++ on Ubuntu runs five times as fast, which really surprised me. I'm going to stick with "real" linux and only boot Windows for a very few applications - unless they run on Wine, then I won't look back.

g++ is very Linux centric and frequently uses system calls (stat) that happens to be very expensive to emulate on Windows. Like 1 cheap call on Linux, but takes 7 system calls for Cygwin to collect all the information (most of which is then not used).

https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/issues/3139

[Magnum]

A lill survey, which OS do you prefer for development of your engine?

All my OpenCL stuff was done with Ubuntu Linux, Intel, AMD and Nvidia devices are well supported, I like the toolchain, gcc, clang and mingw crosscompiler are fine for me, and you can easily deploy into the cloud, still need a Windows partition on my workstation to test the OpenCL stack and GUIs, I guess at some point virtual machines will also be able loop through the gpu device, saw recently an article about macOS in a VirtualBox, in future a single host might be enough to cover all OS, or alike.

--
Srdja

MacBook Pro 16-inch M1 MAX all-in version.
= always newest: macOS, Windows 11 ARM, … Linux.
+ always newest: Parallels and CrossOver.