Portability and the Ivory Tower (was Re: Book on Microsoft C)

[David Collier-Brown]

> mcdonald at uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:
> 	"Portability" is a word seldom heard outside the academic discussions
> 	of Usenet.
> 
>From article <28587 at ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, by jas at ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Jim Shankland):
> Third, it's not the *users* who pay the price of non-portable code
> (at least, not directly); it's the software vendors.  

  To give a real-world example of this, consider Interleaf.  We have
one product that runs on Unix, MicroVax-VMS and Aegis, with slightly
older versions of the product running on these plus the Mac OS and
PoisonousComputer DOS.

  If we were in the business of writing inefficient code, we would
NOT still be in business.  If we wrote non-portable code we wouldn't
be as big.

  In my last job I was writing code for a Vax 8650 and Suns, with a
Sequent or a Amdahl/IBM lurking in the wings.  Its **almost** easy.

  --dave (and I didn't even write TPS) c-b
-- 
 David Collier-Brown.  | yunexus!lethe!dave
 Interleaf Canada Inc. |
 1550 Enterprise Rd.   | He's so smart he's dumb.
 Mississauga, Ontario  |       --Joyce C-B