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From: jimb@amdcad.UUCP (Jim Budler)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: Mac program portability, etc.
Message-ID: <7451@amdcad.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 14-Dec-85 03:34:04 EST
Article-I.D.: amdcad.7451
Posted: Sat Dec 14 03:34:04 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Dec-85 00:19:29 EST
References: <925@osu-eddie.UUCP>
Reply-To: jimb@amdcad.UUCP (Jim Budler)
Distribution: net
Organization: AMD, Sunnyvale, California
Lines: 49

In article <925@osu-eddie.UUCP> elwell@osu-eddie.UUCP (Clayton M. Elwell) writes:
>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,
>...
>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
>...
>All it takes is a little skill and self-discipline.  Maybe that's too
>much to ask from hobbyists.  I hope not.

Have you tried it?  It's all very well to sit there with all the
documentation and say it's easy.  But most of us 
	1) Don't have the documentation for all these systems.
	2) Don't have these systems to experiment.

I've spent many hours porting Megamax and Aztec C source to Mac C.

If you can get the various C developers to agree on a 'standard' on 
one machine, and then get the C developers on ALL machines to adhere
or at least approach this 'standard' I might believe in your approach.
Meanwhile, back in reality I am going to spend my time getting the code
working.

When I have to spend hours getting a routine working on one tricky system 
with full documentation, I am not likely to spend many times that trying to 
make it portable to a system for which I have NO documentation.

The extent of modularity you can expect from me is the normal extent of
good programming practice: output call go to an output routine,
input calls go to an input routine.

The documentation for MY system cost me $$, do you expect me to 
spend the $$ on documentation for YOUR machine?  I'll spend
it on MY machine.


>
-- 
 Jim Budler
 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
 (408) 749-5806
 Usenet: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amdcad!jimb
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