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From: guido@boring.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac,net.micro.amiga,net.micro.atari
Subject: Re: Ban the binaries!
Message-ID: <6696@boring.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 25-Nov-85 10:00:59 EST
Article-I.D.: boring.6696
Posted: Mon Nov 25 10:00:59 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Nov-85 05:30:14 EST
References: <1600@cbosgd.UUCP> <646@k.cs.cmu.edu> <465@graffiti.UUCP>
Reply-To: guido@mcvax.UUCP (Guido van Rossum)
Organization: "Stamp Out BASIC" Committee, CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 32
Xref: watmath net.micro.mac:3599 net.micro.amiga:858 net.micro.atari:1763
Apparently-To: rnews@mcvax.LOCAL

In article <465@graffiti.UUCP> peter@graffiti.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
>After all... ifdefs do cut it everywhere else. It's possible with a little
>work to write a program that can compile and run on the IBM-PC with a variety
>of compilers, VMS, *and* various semi-compatible flavors of UNIX. The same
>program, mind you...

Yes, but it doesn't come naturally (nor free).  You may indeed be
overestimating the "professionalism" of Macintosh C programmers (though
it's slowly improving, now, with examples like SKEL available and all
the books out).  From what I've seen, many of them had never written in
C before they got their Mac.  Also, someone on a 128k Mac doesn't have
the spare memory to add all the #ifdef's to their code in the first
place.

>[porting software to radically different environments]

An example of portable software for various windowing systems is "Brown
Windows", which runs on Suns, Apollos and other workstations.  But this
is a LARGE shell of extra software, and after porting it to the Mac I
believe you would be left with little space for your program, AND the
user interface wouldn't be too Mac-ish.  The same would be true for
GKS.

The best approximation of what you want would probably be using the
Aztec "shell" environment and go back to printf.  Then you can write
portable programs that run with no modification on Unix and Macs.  But:
no windows, no mouse, no dialogs, not a single Macintosh-like feature
(even the corners of the screen aren't round any more!).  Here it would
even make sense to port curses :->

-- 
	Guido van Rossum, CWI, Amsterdam, Holland (guido@mcvax.UUCP)