On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 03:59:13PM +0000, Uoti Urpala wrote: > Wouter Verhelst <wouter <at> debian.org> writes: > > IMAO, a statement of (paraphrased) 'portability is for weenies' isn't > > Keeping portability in mind is a good thing especially if you're doing something > that is easily implementable with common interfaces. However in some cases > additional portability has very real costs, and it's by no means given that the > balance should go in the favor of portability. … and neither should the balance go in favour of dropping portability. In my experience, programs written with portability in mind are much more resilient to breakage, and thus over time they survive bit-rot much better. Whenever I see a program that is explicitly non-portable, I tend to discount it in favour of portable alternatives, because it means: - the author has considered multiple alternatives, and doesn't rely on Linux kernel x.y.z especially or glibc version n - if a given feature is deprecated, the program might still work by falling back to another feature (re. epoll-vs-poll), possibly in a degraded mode but still work - any many other considerations So, while you have said very clearly in this thread "portability should be amongst the last considerations", understand that not everyone shares your point of view. regards, iustin
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