Why is 64 bits on Windows still treated as being so special by many people?
There is compatibility mode for 32 bit so there is not much point in caring unless you need tons of memory(which is pro).
Microsoft(apparently - see exploiter's post) doesn't provide 64 bit express, if you buy for few hundred dollars - you're a pro, if you pirate - you're evil = you don't get support for admitting it, if you have dreamspark - you SHOULD learn how to build and link yourself, that's the purpose of giving loot out for free, they are NOT gifts, they are given for learning purposes. MinGW in itself is tons of pain on 32 bit(can't be much better on 64, probably is worse) compared to how painless GCC is on Linux. Other compilers are for pros or cost money or both(Intel's, Borland's?).
It requires 2 builds if you want to support both (unless you abandon like 15-30% of user base and go only 64 bit), therefore you're a pro for knowing how to configure it all and ship two versions.
Articles like this surely don't help: http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/game-programming/managing-decoupling-part-2-polling-callbacks-and-events-r3044 when on gamedev and blogs of 'real' companies that claim to write 'good' code:
struct Callback16
{
void (*f)(void);
char data[12];
};
Unis, tutorials, old bad practices, etc. that neglect the 64 bit and/or assume pointer is 4 bytes don't help either.
Differences like registers, calling conventions etc. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/7kcdt6fy.aspx don't seem like something non pro cares about..