EDSAC on your desk.

From: John Foust <jfoust_at_threedee.com>
Date: Mon Sep 21 11:18:29 1998

At 10:33 AM 9/21/98 -0400, CLASSICCMP_at_timaxp.trailing-edge.com wrote:
>In _BYTE_ 1982:6 p182, you'll find
>Thomas Kurtz (yes, *the* Kurtz of Dartmouth) describing the draft
>standard as it then existed, and he actually sold a working version of
>this called "True BASIC".

I think I own a copy of True BASIC for the Amiga.

>True, but C itself if far from portable. The endless maze of #ifdef's
>that are necessary to make a piece of source code portable among a limited
>set of machines and OS's are fine and dandy unless you have to support all
>those different permutations!

Straight ANSI C must be the most portable language for contemporary
computers. Java is written in it. :-) C++ is another matter, it still
has too many flavors. Depending on the app, portability can be a great
hassle (if you expect portable GUIs) or a non-concern (in command-line,
text-based apps).

- John
Received on Mon Sep 21 1998 - 11:18:29 BST