I figured it was high time to start up a thread about the ins and outs and ups and downs of creating truly cross-platform software.
I am starting to notice already that many BlitzMax users are more interested on just getting software to work on their own platform, using various native techniques to achieve what they want to happen. That's fine. I guess there is going to be a whole spectrum of portability.
In keeping with the highest ideal of the cross-platform basis of BlitzMax, it would be most ideal to create software that doesn't do anything natively different so that is truly can be ported with no change on any of the BlitzMax platforms. You might think of that as `pure` cross-platform compatibility. Then you're going to have your various degrees of incompatibility, people wanting to specifically access the Win32 API or specifically write for the Mac Aqua user interface, or perhaps specifically support quicktime or to support only windows media player, etc etc...
I just wondered as to all your thoughts and opinions about the importance of being fully cross-platform and whether it really matters?
I am starting to notice already that many BlitzMax users are more interested on just getting software to work on their own platform, using various native techniques to achieve what they want to happen. That's fine. I guess there is going to be a whole spectrum of portability.
In keeping with the highest ideal of the cross-platform basis of BlitzMax, it would be most ideal to create software that doesn't do anything natively different so that is truly can be ported with no change on any of the BlitzMax platforms. You might think of that as `pure` cross-platform compatibility. Then you're going to have your various degrees of incompatibility, people wanting to specifically access the Win32 API or specifically write for the Mac Aqua user interface, or perhaps specifically support quicktime or to support only windows media player, etc etc...
I just wondered as to all your thoughts and opinions about the importance of being fully cross-platform and whether it really matters?