Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!eecae!cps3xx!rang
From: rang@cpsin3.cps.msu.edu (Anton Rang)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: MAJOR MAC IIx PROBLEMS!!!!! APP
Message-ID: <1724@cps3xx.UUCP>
Date: 5 Feb 89 18:23:07 GMT
References: <35965@think.UUCP> <46100273@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Sender: usenet@cps3xx.UUCP
Reply-To: rang@cpswh.cps.msu.edu (Anton Rang)
Organization: Michigan State University, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 34
In-reply-to: mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu's message of 2 Feb 89 20:59:00 GMT

In article <46100273@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
> [ ... ] I wrote a perfectly 100%
>legal Fortran program that won't run on a Mac II. This has NEVER
>and I mean NEVER happened on any other computer in the 25 years I have
>been programming! A 100% (and I DO mean 100%) legal Fortran program
>should continue to run. Programs I wrote under VMS 1.00 run fine
>under 5.0. [ ... ]

  Well, the more operating-system dependent things there are in a
program, the less likely it is that it will continue to run under
future versions of the OS.  If you wrote a "100% legal" FORTRAN
program which doesn't use any of the OS's features, it should run
under any version.  But if you're using system calls, well, things may
eventually break.
  I agree that Apple (maybe) should have done a better job of keeping
things compatible--but I think that MultiFinder is a *tremendous*
piece of software, since nearly all existing software still works with
it!  Apple's mistake (well, IMHO) was letting people play with global
variables and giving them access to too much of the OS's internals.
  The only way to maintain 100% compatibility at this point would be
for Apple to create a virtual machine for programs to run under.  This
is a big project, but could be worth it (anybody out there working on
it?).

		Anton

  (Oh, and speaking of VMS, my $GETDEV call went away in 5.0, in favor
of $GETDVI.  Broke my program.  Of course, they warned me 5 years in
advance :-).

+---------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| Anton Rang (grad student) | "UNIX: Just Say No!"   | "Do worry...be SAD!" |
| Michigan State University | rang@cpswh.cps.msu.edu |                      |
+---------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+