Subject: Re: 3 Lisps, 3 Ways of Specifying OS From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 03:13:43 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3212277220965737@naggum.net> * Doug Alcorn | In conclusion, yes, linux compatibility isn't as cut and dry as you might | want it to be. No, it doesn't have to be impossible. Obviously, the | more interaction you do with the OS the more dependent you are on the | distro. However, I would think most service type applications could be | fairly immune to distro variances. One of the things I keep wondering about when reading all this weird stuff and FUD-like propaganda against Linux stability is "How come _Perl_ can run so well on all those _wildly_ differing systems?" Perl includes more operating system interaction than any other language around -- that interaction is half its raison d'etre -- and yet it manages to provide both a specific and a general interface to the operating system that remains portable and stable between releases of Linux kernels and glibc. Or at least so it appears. I realize that building Perl from scratch on any given system queries so many properties of the system that one has to marvel at the collective pain that its developers must have suffered, but this indicates that autoconf and similar GNU tools actually _do_ manage to collect and destill all the painful collective experience in porting code and building applications under the many and varied Unices. This experience should be eminently exploitable internally by vendors, too -- using these tools does not "GNUtaminate" the product as far as I can tell. /// -- The United Nations before and after the leadership of Kofi Annan are two very different organizations. The "before" United Nations did not deserve much credit and certainly not a Nobel peace prize. The "after" United Nations equally certainly does. I applaud the Nobel committee's choice.