There’s “builds on Windows” cross-platform and there’s “works on a big-endian MIPS router with a 2.6.x series Linux kernel and an ancient Busybox” cross-platform. And a lot more. All of those are important to somebody. So “100% irrelevant to any cross-platform discussion” for lack of Windows support sounds overexaggerated to me, let alone for lack of Visual Studio support.
Also, well. Before the article under discussion, there was no decent Windows support, because no pkg-config user was willing to donate their time or spend their money to improve the Microsoft Windows ecosystem. Now somebody came around and there is. Perhaps that will happen to the Microsoft Visual Studio ecosystem as well, in time, or perhaps not. Probably not going to be me, though.
(In the case of CMake, the support appeared when Microsoft spent their money on improving the Microsoft Visual Studio ecosystem, because C++ programmers not using Visual Studio became numerous enough, and CMake became popular enough among them, that not being to interoperate with their work diminished the IDE’s value. I don’t see that happening with pkg-config, mainly because a lot of its usage is in the C world, and Microsoft doesn’t really care all that much about that.)
Also, well. Before the article under discussion, there was no decent Windows support, because no pkg-config user was willing to donate their time or spend their money to improve the Microsoft Windows ecosystem. Now somebody came around and there is. Perhaps that will happen to the Microsoft Visual Studio ecosystem as well, in time, or perhaps not. Probably not going to be me, though.
(In the case of CMake, the support appeared when Microsoft spent their money on improving the Microsoft Visual Studio ecosystem, because C++ programmers not using Visual Studio became numerous enough, and CMake became popular enough among them, that not being to interoperate with their work diminished the IDE’s value. I don’t see that happening with pkg-config, mainly because a lot of its usage is in the C world, and Microsoft doesn’t really care all that much about that.)