Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!caen.engin.umich.edu!ejd
From: ejd@caen.engin.umich.edu (Edward J Driscoll)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Book on Microsoft C
Message-ID: <424ce87c.b11a@falcon.engin.umich.edu>
Date: 28 Mar 89 21:53:00 GMT
References: <754@oravax.UUCP> <225800146@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> <9937@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Reply-To: ejd@caen.engin.umich.edu (Edward J Driscoll)
Organization: caen
Lines: 23

In article <9937@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>) writes:
>In article <225800146@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>>"Portability" is a word seldom heard outside the academic discussions
>>of Usenet.
>
>That's utter nonsense.[....]
>
>There are numerous commercial software vendors who rely on portable C
>programming practice as the basis for providing versions of their
>products on as many popular machines as possible.

Sure, but there are also numerous developers who use all kinds of
non-portable code in order to get the best performance they can.
The majority of users probably only use a particular application
on one particular system, so they're not going to be attracted
by portability.  They WILL be attracted to speed and a sophisticated
interface.  The original poster claimed that non-portable code
should be avoided at all costs.  This, too, is utter nonsense.

-- 
Ed Driscoll
The University of Michigan
ejd@caen.engin.umich.edu