Praise of open source code arose in connection with the dos/linus discussion. I have often been on the wrong end of trying to compile some open source (e.g., an older version of GNU awk) on a version of Unix.
Even when the Unix choices were few (e.g., BSD versus Solaris) different version of Unix had a habit of putting their source libraries, even their compile and make programs in different directories, especially in networked environments. I guess there were standard installations but the sysads decided to tweak things their own way. It was always big fun playing the mix and match game and adjusting the makefile to know where to look for what. Even standard files were sometimes slightly renamed so you got the wonderful ``cant find file XXX''. Once you got all THAT straight, then you found out the source would only compile with the GNU version of the compiler or linker (e.g., gcc instead of cc), rather than the one on your Unix. And on an on. Making a program compile, really, really was always one of the challenges of being a Unix sysad. True, autoconfigure programs and such have taken some of the pain of out of this. I used to argue that any compiled language like C, was just as ``platform independent'' and ``portable'' as object oriented code like, Java: That is, any source code can run on any OS, as long as you can compile the source on that OS. In principle there were C compilers and libraries for all the main OSes. Java requires a real-time equivalent: the virtual Java machine or other similar names. What's that big difference, I asked, between a local java interpreter that must be compiled for and run on a particular OS, and just compiling the program for that OS? The comback, that I now really can not argue with is that the standards for a Java Virtual machine were so tightly controlled, that any pre- compiled java machine readable byte code, really would run on any local java interpreter, pretty much without hassle. This simply could not be said about compiling source code. Still true? To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies. More info can be found at; http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
