Excerpts from Chris Angelico's message of 2016-04-25 03:18:14 +0200:
ISTR the last time I tried to build Pike on Windows was a bit of a disaster. Sadly, there is nothing simple about cross-compilation. It'd be really awesome if the Windows 10 Linux subsystem makes that easier.
windows 10 linux subsystem is the equivalent to wine. it runs native linux binaries (directly from the ubuntu repos) but has no GUI support.
If it'll run a C compiler, that might be enough to build Pike more easily. The current compilation process involves a Windows machine and a Linux machine with shared storage; if the Linux side of it could be the "Linux on Windows" subsystem, that might cover it.
Of course, that might also result in a binary that won't run on Windows 8 or earlier.
i only know what is written in the news and what microsoft published about it, and i extrapolate the rest from what i know about wine :-)
using the linux susbsystem to help build pike on windows might work. but i think all it will do is save you from having to get a separate linux machine. the build process will still be just as complex. as far as i read, there is no way to call linux executables from windows or the reverse, so communication between the two sides will still involve the old methods of using ssh or sharing files. (though at least linux can write to the windows disk, so no shared fileserver needs to be set up.
in other words, if setting up all the parts (a windows machine, a linux machine, file sharing) is the hard part, then yes, the linux subsystem should make at least that easier.
for getting windows 8 binaries, that depends on the capabilities of the windows c compiler that you have available in windows 10. i would hope that this is supported.
greetings, martin.