Path: csiph.com!x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net!newsfeed.hal-mli.net!feeder1.hal-mli.net!border3.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nx01.iad01.newshosting.com!newshosting.com!news.glorb.com!news-spur2.glorb.com!homer.glorb.com!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Steve Sobol Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: Re: Android?Why Dalvik? Date: Mon, 30 May 2011 19:12:09 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Lines: 37 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: xoAFiuXnRqdiUJrjkwExXQ.user.posting2.glorb.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@glorb.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 02:12:10 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: MicroPlanet-Gravity/3.0.4 X-Notice: Scanned by Mr. Bill Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.lang.java.programmer:4785 In article , BGB says... > > I'd bet, these days, that the root cause of that situation is the fact > > that the three operating systems have *completely* different GUI's. > > > > for source compatibility, yes, cross-platform GUI is a big issue. > > > for binary compatibility, the much bigger issue is the lack of a common > set of binary formats, as well as different CPU architectures and > operating modes. CPU architectures aren't really a major issue anymore. Linux, many BSDish operating systems, OS X and Windows all run primarily on Intel CPUs. However, you are right about executable formats. It would be less of an issue if OS X supported the Linux ELF format. FreeBSD is able to use ELF executables, but ELF is not that OS's native binary format. > my ideas for running C in a bytecoded VM, also just happened to include > ways of basically delaying final type specialization, many cases of > handling "#ifdef" blocks, ... until JIT time. But to me, that eliminates *the biggest* benefit to using C (and dealing with its hassles). -- Steve Sobol - Programming/WebDev/IT Support sjsobol@JustThe.net