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From: klee@gilroy.pa.dec.com (Ken Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: A naive question - motif on mac-os?
Keywords: X windows motif mac port portability
Message-ID: <2377@bacchus.dec.com>
Date: 2 Jan 90 17:50:50 GMT
References: <1025@crash.cts.com>
Sender: news@decwrl.dec.com
Reply-To: klee@decwrl.dec.com
Organization: DEC Western Software Laboratory
Lines: 23

In article <1025@crash.cts.com>, alen@crash.cts.com (Alen Shapiro) writes:
> I'd like to run the application
> on Sun, IBM-PC/PS, Mac.

Various people are trying to solve this problem.  The two popular
approaches are rewriting parts of your program for each platform (not
just the user interface section, there are bound to be OS differences,
etc.) and writing some sort of portability layer that provides the same
functionality on several platforms.  There is a lot of merit in either
approach.  The first approach lets you take maximum advantage of the
performance and functionality of each platform, but you do pay a
penalty in development time.  The second approach decreases development
time if you can share the portability layer among several applications,
but you do pay a penalty in performance and functionality.

I have heard of some commercial portability packages, but haven't tried
any of them.  I suspect that none will be complete enough for any
significant project,  but that do provide a starting place.

Ken Lee
DEC Western Software Laboratory, Palo Alto, Calif.
Internet: klee@decwrl.dec.com
uucp: uunet!decwrl!klee