On Sat, Jan 22, 2005 at 03:30:44PM +0100, Asger Ottar Alstrup wrote: > John Weiss wrote: > >Doing true full-Windows support in an inherently-unix program is a > >very thorny, messy situation. > > Have a look at the patch and then give your comments rather than this FUD.
Not FUD. Reality. Be fair, Asger, and include the other sentences in the paragraph. Specifically, the one about one place where I used to work. They had the *best* platform-independence-layer I've seen *anywhere* since. That layer handled, seamlessly, 3 Unix flavors and Windows NT. Took them YEARS to get it to that state. Every time we needed a new OS-level library call, it took the guy who maintained the platform-independence-layer, a really stellar, bright guy with a CompSci PhD, *at* *least* 2 weeks to get a clean, forward-maintainable implementation in place. I know; I threw in a quick-kludge for one piece of code I was working on, and didn't replace the kludge with the corresponding implementation from the P.I.-layer until months later. So, don't you *dare* accuse me of FUD; I speak from direct experience. Besides, right now (besides ad-hominem attacks) you're most likely "picking the low-hanging fruit" so to speak. It's what any good software developer would do. However, I fear, based on your dismissive reaction, that you're extrapolating your current focus to all cases. The Unix/Windows platform-indep.-layer problem isn't intractable. However, it's far from non-trivial. Eventually, Asger, you *will* hit the thornier stuff, and the pitched screaming between you and Lars will commence. > Asger Wrote: > > > Further out, I'd even like to kick out LaTeX, and put some > > > other backend in instead to reduce the footprint. > > Then Asger Wrote: > > To clarify, I would never drop LaTeX support, Language Lesson: In most dialects of English, those two statements are mutually exclusive. The only dialect where it's not is that spoken in Washington D.C. -- John Weiss
