Re: OT: Why is C so popular?
On Wed, 2003-08-27 at 05:52, Colin Watson wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2003 at 03:46:00AM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote:
> > It's only compatible and portable on similar platforms. Any C
> > code that chock full of Linux system calls won't portable to any
> > other platform unless a (gasp) compatibility layer is written 1st.
>
> That's why you don't do that, and write to the C standard and POSIX
> instead. Once in a while you need a very small compatibility layer, but
> this is more rare in well-written programs than you seem to think.
But the point is that it can easily be done, and often is, to get
that extra feature, or reduce the SLOC by a dozen or so, or to speed
it up a little bit.
Another thing that kills portability is the need to call functions
that only have a library on a specific platform.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Ron Johnson, Jr. ron.l.johnson@cox.net
Jefferson, LA USA
Some former UNSCOM officials are alarmed, however. Terry Taylor,
a British senior UNSCOM inspector from 1993 to 1997, says the
figure of 95 percent disarmament is "complete nonsense because
inspectors never learned what 100 percent was. UNSCOM found a
great deal and destroyed a great deal, but we knew [Iraq's] work
was continuing while we were there, and I'm sure it continues,"
says Mr. Taylor, now head of the Washington
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0829/p01s03-wosc.html
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