on 1/11/01 3:20 PM, Bryan Harris at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Would anyone with a bit of programming saavy be willing to explain to me why
> porting to OS X is so difficult?
>
> (I always imagined most of the code was written in C++ (or java?), and that
> a simple recompile would suffice. Or, if they've changed around some of the
> library function names, use simple grep searches that would find/replace old
> function names with the new ones.)
For many applications, porting is a very simple process. For many others it
is a very, very difficult process. Many library routines were taken out
altogether. There is still some functionality that we are waiting to
stabilize before we can adequately evaluate whether it is usable. Sorry I
can't elaborate.
Entourage (and all of the Office apps) have dependencies on other pieces
being properly carbonized (In our case, things like Stuffit compression,
Palm Sync, etc.).
And then every once in a while a big curveball comes your way. Sharing
memory between applications, and sharing a database between applications are
big hairy items.
Over time Apple has changed its tune about how difficult it is to Carbonize
an application. The simplest of apps can be done in days and weeks. The more
complex one is, the more likely it is that an upgrade will take much longer.
It is relatively easy to get something that is demoable. It is a complete
other problem to ship something that you would stake your reputation on.
Oh yeah, you can also bet that the version that we ship for OS/X will not
just be a carbonized version of 2001.
jud
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