Windows port of the msprime functionality

[bodkan]

A student in the department (complete newbie to popgen and simulations) has a Windows laptop and wants to run some simple coalescent simulations. This should hopefully unlock the option to run Python-based msprime simulations in slendr.

Running SLiM in slendr requires working with the OS command-line and slendr currently does it using unix terminal under the hood. Porting this to Windows will be more work (it's been > 10 years since I touched cmd.exe on a Windows machine), but at least the Windows Python/msprime port should be relatively straightforward, so let's focus on that here.

[bhaller]

You might consider just recommending that people do this sort of thing under the WSL when on Windows. SLiM runs under the WSL just fine, including SLiMgui; chapter 2 of the manual has install instructions for that configuration. But of course if it worked on native Windows too, that would be nice.

[codecov-commenter]

Codecov Report

Merging #102 (d9312a3) into main (6154f94) will decrease coverage by 0.04%. The diff coverage is 100.00%.

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main     #102      +/-   ##
==========================================
- Coverage   81.94%   81.90%   -0.05%     
==========================================
  Files           6        6              
  Lines        2886     2879       -7     
==========================================
- Hits         2365     2358       -7     
  Misses        521      521              

Impacted Files	Coverage Δ
R/compilation.R	89.71% <100.00%> (-0.14%)	:arrow_down:

:mega: Codecov can now indicate which changes are the most critical in Pull Requests. Learn more

[bodkan]

Yeah, that is definitely a good option. I've been hesitant to recommend something like that officially, simply because I have no way of testing things myself. In fact, I don't even have access to a Windows machine. Perhaps I should finally look for a reasonable/free virtualization option for macOS.

I will probably wait for someone to really need this and then work with them to sort a full Windows port together. It would be nice to have the possibility to use slendr/SLiM without WSL because that would make the package truly multiplatform.

[bhaller]

Yeah, that is definitely a good option. I've been hesitant to recommend something like that officially, simply because I have no way of testing things myself. In fact, I don't even have access to a Windows machine. Perhaps I should finally look for a reasonable/free virtualization option for macOS.

I will probably wait for someone to really need this and then work with them to sort a full Windows port together. It would be nice to have the possibility to use slendr/SLiM without WSL because that would make the package truly multiplatform.

This is much the same position I am in with SLiM; I have no Windows machine, and no desire to learn how to do software development on Windows, so I waited until someone came along who wanted to volunteer to do the port. :->