tokumaru wrote:You'd be surprised at how many people don't know what a command line application is, and come here claiming that the assemblers they're trying don't work because they open a black window that instantly closes.
Which probably means they still have a lot to learn before they should start learning NES development.
tepples wrote:And in order not to sound too buddy-buddy with Microsoft, we're going to have to come up with some believable wording to explain exactly why we are relying on Windows executables.
If you're so worried about that then shouldn't you also be worried about being too buddy-buddy to a particular emulator (something that tends to lead to "religious" wars as people tend to attempt imposing their preferences on everybody else), or too buddy-buddy to a particular tool? Seriously, I believe that you're overthinking this.
If you want to teach people how to use a tool and that tool happens to only be readily available on Windows, then that means you should tell the person to find a way to run those programs, and if you don't like this, then you should find tools that are readily available elsewhere to avoid the issue in the first place. It sounds like your problem is that you want to avoid coming out as being Microsoft friendly.
Also chances are that somebody developing on Linux or OSX is more likely to have a good technical background out of necessity because they're using less common (and thereby less supported) platforms.