How can I create a windows native port of an open source program?

Question

I want to create a native windows port for the sagemath project. Currently, an ongoing cygwin port exists. But, developers at Sage-Windows-Devel group told me that a windows port would be much more appreciated. Since, it takes a long time to build sage using cygwin/gcc.

Therefore, I want to create, say MSVC project files for each of the fundamental packages of sagemath. Those packages can be downloaded from their respective websites. I've downloaded one and just followed it's Readme.txt files blindfolded. The build with MSVC was successful. Now how can I create on my own such .proj files for the programs that do not have MSVC .proj files?

Here are a list of basic packages to be ported foremost:

General Package Analysis

By, the way, I'm very fond of Windows and probably going to be a sagemath fanatic. Only because, its great collection of graph theory algorithms.

Is there any tutorial/Book that would help me to learn the skills required to carry on this task?

Answer 1

Have a look at the MinGW project instead. With this you can use standard Makefiles instead of MSVC .proj files. With MinGW however, there is no dependency on Cygwin and built executables and libraries are native Windows. It is very polished these days and even has an installer.

If you want a more "graphical" approach, you can try the good old DevCPP.