Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!apple!apple.com!desnoyer
From: desnoyer@apple.com (Peter Desnoyers)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Use UNIX for MSDOS development?
Message-ID: <4009@internal.Apple.COM>
Date: 1 Sep 89 17:32:05 GMT
References: <21714@cup.portal.com>
Sender: usenet@Apple.COM
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc.
Lines: 37

In article <21714@cup.portal.com> cliffhanger@cup.portal.com (Cliff C 
Heyer) writes:
> Wondered if it's advisable to develop
> MS DOS applications (in C) using UNIX
> rather than MSDOS.(assuming 386, 6+MB, etc)
> It seems multitasking, etc., would be of
> help to increase productivity...
> any comments greatly appreciated!
> Cliff C Heyer

In my mind the best development environment for MSDOS (or other micros - 
for instance Macintoshes) would be a cross-compiler running on a 
fair-sized UNIX system, such as a big Sun or a VAX. Pluses:

+ UNIX tools - sccs, make, awk, all those other fun things.

+ (this is the big one) - you can put all the source - or at least the 
current master version - in one place instead of having it scattered 
across twice as many micros as you have programmers, half of them turned 
off and not accessible from the net at any given time.

+ the concept of developing on a machine that can crash in the middle of 
running a make - or worse yet, while you are editing - is abhorrent. 

+ and, finally, you're not trying to run some horribly buggy piece of 
software on the machine that your latest, not-quite-backed-up-yet copy of 
the source is resident on. After all, rest assured that in MS-DOS your 
disk controller is just another unprotected address for your stray 
pointers to search for.

If you only have one programmer, most of the advantages of the UNIX 
cross-development environment go away. Especially if the machine running 
UNIX is a PC clone. The UNIX tools are useful in any case, however.

                                      Peter Desnoyers
                                      Apple ATG
                                      (408) 974-4469