ABIs and the futurrrr of UNIX(tm)

[Walter Bays]

In article <185 at tscs.UUCP> gerard at tscs.UUCP (Stephen M. Gerard) writes:
>A pseudo assembler interface could take advanatge of optimized library 
>routines for each processor type and yield satisfactory results for most 
>applications.  This type of standard would not discriminate against the less 
>popular cpu's and could offer across the board compatability for UNIX systems 
>ranging from desktop PC's to Cray's.  This would still give the software 
>developer reasonable protection because without documentation and meaningful 
>variable names, the ability to edit such code would be limited to about the 
>same level as code generated by a good quality disassembler.  The plus side 
>for the software developer, is that they now have a much larger market to sell 
>to.  ... [discussion of advantages to end-users and hardware vendors]

The idea sounds very good.  But perhaps you can explain why it's so
hard for a developer to provide multiple versions.  (This is not a
knock at developers; I simply don't know the answer.) If we believe in
source code standardization, all you have to do is recompile.  (Right?
:-) Is the problem access to the various machines to do the port?
Continued access for customer support?  Incompatibilities:  C-C,
SysV-SysV, BSD-BSD, SysV-BSD, X.Windows-X.Windows, X.Windows-NeWS?  Or
is the problem really distribution:  that you would have to produce
versions for M machines times N media formats, and your distributors
would have to stock that times S software houses?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Any similarities between my opinions and those of the
person who signs my paychecks is purely coincidental.
E-Mail route: ...!pyramid!garth!walter
USPS: Intergraph APD, 2400 Geng Road, Palo Alto, California 94303
Phone: (415) 852-2384
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Any similarities between my opinions and those of the
person who signs my paychecks is purely coincidental.
E-Mail route: ...!pyramid!garth!walter
USPS: Intergraph APD, 2400 Geng Road, Palo Alto, California 94303
Phone: (415) 852-2384
------------------------------------------------------------------------------