Path: csiph.com!weretis.net!feeder6.news.weretis.net!news.misty.com!news.iecc.com!.POSTED.news.iecc.com!nerds-end From: Hans-Peter Diettrich Newsgroups: comp.compilers Subject: Re: Portable Software Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2023 07:49:46 +0200 Organization: Compilers Central Sender: johnl@iecc.com Approved: comp.compilers@iecc.com Message-ID: <23-03-042@comp.compilers> References: <23-03-001@comp.compilers> <23-03-017@comp.compilers> <23-03-022@comp.compilers> <23-03-029@comp.compilers> <23-03-032@comp.compilers> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: gal.iecc.com; posting-host="news.iecc.com:2001:470:1f07:1126:0:676f:7373:6970"; logging-data="97772"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@iecc.com" Keywords: tools Posted-Date: 31 Mar 2023 07:42:53 EDT X-submission-address: compilers@iecc.com X-moderator-address: compilers-request@iecc.com X-FAQ-and-archives: http://compilers.iecc.com In-Reply-To: <23-03-032@comp.compilers> Xref: csiph.com comp.compilers:3442 On 3/28/23 4:42 PM, Aharon Robbins wrote: > In article <23-03-029@comp.compilers>, > Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote: >> My impression was that the FSF favors C and ./configure for "portable" >> code. > > Like many things, this is the result of evolution. Autoconf is well > over 20 years old, and when it was created the ISO C and POSIX standards > had not yet spread throughout the Unix/Windows/macOS world. It and the > rest of the autotools solved a real problem. About 20 years ago I could not build any open source program on Windows. Messages like "Compiler can not build executables" popped up when using MinGW or Cygwin. I ended up in ./configure in a Linux VM and fixing the resulting compiler errors manually on Windows. Without that trick I had no chance to load the "portable" source code into any development environment for inspection in readable (compilable) form. Often I had the impression that the author wanted the program not for use on Windows machines. Kind of "source open for specific OS only" :-( DoDi