Development system

davidsen at steinmetz.UUCP davidsen at steinmetz.UUCP
Sat Feb 7 06:04:40 AEST 1987


In article <636 at pedsgo.UUCP> bob at pedsgo.UUCP (Bob Weiler) writes:
>Can anyone tell me if
>
>1)	I buy a XENIX development system, do I get a Microsoft C based
>	compiler or is it a PCC based compiler?

Unfortunately the Microsoft compiler. While this is a good
compiler, generates multiple memory models, cross compiles for
PCDOS, etc, it will not compile some useful programs posted to
the net without hours of hacking. If you don't need complete
compatibility, this is not a problem. Anything which passes the
compiler's internal checking with top error level is *far* more
portable than checking with lint. I have never found a problem
which wasn't really a bug in the program, except in the "huge
model", which is a non-portable nest of bugs. It uses
non-portable keywords and procedure names (such as 'halloc'). A
switch to use 32 bit ints would have eliminated most of this.
>
>2)	Is XENIX 386 available for the COMPAQ 386 yet? How bout
>	for any other 386?

It was shown at UniForum, but doesn't seem to be shipping.
Microport also showed, I think they're a little closer to being
ready, but that could just be because I got a bad demo from the
Microsoft guy.
>
>3)	Anything good or bad about SCO?
>
Their support policy is aimed at supporting the novice and
soaking the expert. They give one month free tech support with a
copy, but that frequently runs out before you find the *real*
questions. I would prefer one or two hours of support anytime in
the first year. Since you have no choice but to buy from SCO
(the IBM version seems to lack some features), "you might as
well enjoy it".

Disclamer: all personal opinion...

-- 
bill davidsen			sixhub \
      ihnp4!seismo!rochester!steinmetz ->  crdos1!davidsen
				chinet /
ARPA: davidsen%crdos1.uucp at ge-crd.ARPA (or davidsen at ge-crd.ARPA)



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