Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site cadovax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!gatech!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!ittatc!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwrba!cadovax!keithd
From: keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: net.sources.amiga
Message-ID: <968@cadovax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 20-Nov-85 21:14:29 EST
Article-I.D.: cadovax.968
Posted: Wed Nov 20 21:14:29 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 25-Nov-85 07:33:16 EST
References: <4557@alice.UUCP> <1030@gitpyr.UUCP>
Reply-To: keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle)
Organization: CONTEL CADO Systems, Torrance, CA
Lines: 32
Keywords: sources

In article <1030@gitpyr.UUCP> cc100jr@gitpyr.UUCP (Joel M. Rives) writes:
>
>As an after thought, I would like to mention that one difficulty which is bound
>to crop up in a generalized net.source post is the use of system dependent 
>sub-routines (or macros). Sources which may strong use of amiga's Sprite
>graphics are not likely to be easily convertable to the Mac (Or are they? I
>am certainly no expert on either machine.).
>
>Joel Rives

It's worse than that.  The Mac Finder, GEM (the Atari ST) and Intuition (Amiga)
are CHOCK FULL of special routines that do windowing, menus, graphics, text,
mouse etc. for the applications, (and they are quite different) such that
applications written for any of the above mentioned environments will not
port without LOTS of cutting and pasting and hacking and massaging on them,
to say nothing of individual hardware and/or compiler differences.  Most
applications that are worth anything are largely comprised of code that uses
these special routines.  The bottom line is, it is a BIG PAIN to port between
environments, and, you have to know LOTS about BOTH involved environments,
without getting the similar features confused.  This is assuming their
hardware differences do not affect the application significantly.

It is concievable that agreed-upon-syntax 'C' librarys could be
generated that would allow a higher degree of portability between these
environments, but someone is going to have to do a heck of a lot of study
of the different environments to determine what the least common denominators
are.  Something that I certainly don't have the time or inclination to do.

Keith Doyle
#  {ucbvax,ihnp4,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!keithd
#  cadovax!keithd@ucla-locus.arpa