Re: porting code (was: Re: Java for GS?)

[dalloff@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Dave Althoff)]

Devin Reade (gdr@eddore.myrias.com) wrote:

(after quoting my comment about how old-time A][ programmers just start
from scratch in 6502/65816 instead of porting high-level code)

: Yes, I _did_ notice that smiley at the end.  However, if I wrote 
: things like dmake, diff, etc from scratch rather than porting
: them, they'd probably still be incomplete.  I also write stuff
: from scratch, but the spec is often based on a Unix man page,
: so that is a port in a sense, too.

I guess it depends on what you consider a "port".  For years, Apple
programmers have looked at a program on another platform, then wrote fresh
code to do the same thing.  The program works the same, but it's all new
code.  In fact, the code from one version to another is very likely
substantially different since Apples do things differently from other
machines.

On the other hand, if you're using C, or Pascal, or even HyperTalk, you
can use the same source code on the ][ as on the original machine, with
only limited changes.  Sure simplifies code creation...just work out how
to accommodate the hardware differences and compiler implementation
differences, and you're set.  The disadvantage, of course, is big run-time
libraries, and any "Micro$oft Bloat" that affects the original code.

But it's a good point...code development isn't easy, so why reinvent the
wheel?

(Of course, now I've got someone at my office wishing I would port a
simple Applesoft form-printing program over to her PC.  I told those
computer geeks at the Computer Center to hang on to a couple of their
][gs's instead of distributing them all over the campus, but did they
listen?  Of course not.  So I'm using one of their castoff IIgs's to print
forms that they have to run on a typewriter 'cause they haven't got a
program on their precious PC's.  And I'm grinning from ear to ear 8-) )

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
(Believe it or not, I have a ROM 01 IIgs on my desk at work!)
-- 
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