Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com>]

In article <9j9r8m$aqk$1@nh.pace.co.uk>, Marin David Condic says...
>
>Well, to be comparing apples to apples - can you take an EXE compiled on
>Sun/Unix and run it on PC/Linux and have it work? That appears to be the
>test standard for portability between the various versions of Windows,
>right?

A better comparison would probably be if you can get them to work *after*
recompiling (but without modifying sources). I'd say the Win9x and WinNT
families are about as compatable in this respect as different flavors of Unix
are. Simple stuff will work fine, but if you try anything sexy with deep system
calls, there are going to be differences. Large Windows apps often end up having
some code that checks for the OS, and does different things depending on the
answer. For example, getting a list of running processes uses completely
different mechanisms in NT/2k than in 9x.

>Or in the other direction, how portable is an MS/DOS program written in
>(pick your language) if you compile it under WindowsNT with the appropriate
>compiler?

If its a game, not a chance. I know I'm harping on games, but that's really what
PC's are built for. (Why else would we all need realtime 3D sound and graphics
at consumer prices?) If you are using a wintel PC for something else, you are
really just along for the ride. :-)

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