Xref: utzoo comp.lang.c++:13469 comp.lang.c:39301
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!IRO.UMontreal.CA!matrox!altitude!philmtl!ray
From: ray@philmtl.philips.ca (Ray Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: 64 bit architectures and C/C++
Message-ID: <1991May15.190016.21817@philmtl.philips.ca>
Date: 15 May 91 19:00:16 GMT
References: <168@shasta.Stanford.EDU> <4068@inews.intel.com>
Organization: Philips Electronics Ltd.  Product Group PC.  Montreal.
Lines: 35

In referenced article, bhoughto@pima.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>>2. If a trade-off has to be made between compliance and ease of
>>porting, what's the better way to go?
>
>If you're compliant, you're portable.

This is like saying if the syntax is correct then the semantics must be too
although, indeed, there is no need to trade compliance for portability.

There are dangers clearly visible though.  All you can say is that your
compliant program has an excellent chance of compiling on another system
running a compliant compiler, not that it will necessarily work correctly
with the new parameters plugged in.

You only know a program is portable *after* you've tested it on another
system.  How many do that during the initial development cycle?

Porting is not an issue that goes away by writing compliant code - it may
in fact *hide* some of the problems.

If I wanted to be controversial, I might say that 'C's supposed
"portability" is a loaded cannon.  Bugs caused by transferring a piece of
software to another system will continue to exist, even in compliant
software.  Prior to "portable" 'C', porting problems were *expected*,
visible, and handled accordingly.

Will developers still assume these bugs to be likely, and handle
verification accordingly, or will they be lulled by "it compiled first
time" into thinking that the portability issue has been taken into account
up front, and treat it with less attention than it deserves?
-- 
Ray Dunn.                    | UUCP: ray@philmtl.philips.ca
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