[straight-shoota]

> 3. Obscure error messages (macros are to blame here)

I feel like this is a bit strongly influenced by the macro experience. Macros are an advanced and powerful feature and naturally more complex to debug. In general, Crystal's error messages are often praised for their clarity and helpfulness (especially compared to dynamically typed languages, of course).

> 4. Weak HTTP server implementation -- making things such as a fetching POST params or uploads incredibly frustrating. Once read the request body cannot be read again.

The stdlib implementation of `HTTP::Server` is intentionally very bare-bones (many programming languages don't even have such a practically usable feature in stdlib). Specialized web server implementations are available as shards (https://shardbox.org/categories/Web_Frameworks). They're based on the foundation in stdlib and provide more advanced features.

> 5. Weak/non-existent Windows support

Windows support is pretty stable and almost complete by now.

> 6. No multicore support

Crystal has supported multi-threading as opt-in via the `-Dpreview_mt` flag. It's considered a preview, because it's to be used with care when dealing with data structures that are not thread-safe. But it has proven to work well in production use.

> 8. Nil handling takes a bit getting used to (coming from Ruby)

But once you're used to it, it's sooo much helpful. It just helps to avoid a lot of potential bugs which you would have to take extra care for in Ruby.

[svnpenn]

> Windows support is pretty stable and almost complete by now.

This isn't really a genuine statement. Currently Crystal Requires a full installation of Visual Studio on Windows:

https://github.com/crystal-lang/crystal/issues/6170

[npn]

Yes, for compile crystal program to windows binary, you need to install VS Build Tools.

But after the executable binary is compiled then it can run without any dependencies. I think the later is more important for a window program.

I gave the exes to my users and none of them had any problem running it.

For development currently WSL is still the best way to run crystal in windows.

[svnpenn]

> WSL is still the best way to run crystal in windows.

WSL is never the best way to do anything, unless the question is "what is the best way to emulate Linux on Windows?". In all other cases, WSL is literally the worst way to do anything.

[beta-ziliani]

It just requires the build tools. If you use scoop, that entails to:

> run `scoop install vs_2022_cpp_build_tools`

(from the "required libraries" link in https://crystal-lang.org/install/on_windows/)

[svnpenn]

That just installs Visual Studio:

https://github.com/neatorobito/scoop-crystal/blob/main/bucke...

no thank you.

[EpicBlackCrayon]

This specifically installs the Visual C++ Compiler and the Windows headers so that you can get a command prompt with all that in your PATH. It is not a full-fat VS install. The difference is something like 20-30GBs for the full VS install vs 1-2GB for these specific components.

[svnpenn]

Meanwhile, LLVM-MinGW is 108 MB:

https://github.com/mstorsjo/llvm-mingw/releases

[npn]

now you are just arguing for the sake of argument. unzip the file and it will expand to a 400MB folder.