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From: elwell@osu-eddie.UUCP (Clayton M. Elwell)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Mac program portability, etc.
Message-ID: <925@osu-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 6-Dec-85 00:30:22 EST
Article-I.D.: osu-eddi.925
Posted: Fri Dec  6 00:30:22 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Dec-85 03:26:37 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: Ohio State Univ., CIS Dept., Cols, Oh.
Lines: 31

Even with all of the differences between window handling, event handling,
and the rest of the user interface libaries, you CAN make Mac-style
programs portable, so that they can be recompiled (or at least easily
ported) between Macs, Amigas, Atari STs, SUN Workstations, MicroVaxen,
etc.  The basic idea is what's called modular programming.  Before you
become nauseous, I'm using this term in a very limited sense:

Isloate the hardware/OS details in their own set of routines.  I have a
set of routines for (of all things) an IBM PC under VANILLA MS-DOS
that allow me to put up alerts & dialogs, do menu selection, etc.
It wasn't that hard.

I have the GEM programmer's guides, and I've looked closely at the Amiga
documentation.  I also finally grok Sunwindows.  The key to writing
a portable application is to decide on your user interface at a relatively
high level so that you can write modules that isolate the machine
dependencies.  This won't change the 'flavor' of the interface.  On a Mac
it will Macish.  On a SUN it will Sunish (?).  On an Amiga it will be
Amigaish (??).  Anyway, so much for the cute adjectives.  The point is
it's not only possible, it's not very difficult.

All it takes is a little skill and self-discipline.  Maybe that's too
much to ask from hobbyists.  I hope not.

-- 
				-- Clayton Elwell
				Elwell@Ohio-State.CSNET
				Elwell%Ohio-State@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
				...!cbosgd!osu-eddie!elwell
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