Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Debian and package-framework

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Thomas Lord <address@hidden> writes:

>  `package-framework' is lucky to exist in a *slightly* simpler
>  world.  It is much easier to write portable code, even for
>  many low-level system operations, without any pre-processor
>  conditionals at all.

This may only be true when writing very simple C code.  When it comes to
things like raw I/O (i.e., not ANSI C's `fopen' et al. functions, but
rather `read', `write', etc.), in particular in non-nominal situations
(e.g., non-blocking I/O), or, worse, socket-based networking,
portability among Unices does not exist at all and feature tests looks
like the best way to overcome this.

OTOH, fortunately, more and more higher-level, portable libraries are
being used (e.g., GNet, Glib, and G-friends), and a lot of portable
language runtimes are available as well (for Scheme, CL, Python, etc.).
But in the latter case, the configuration step is mostly unneeded.

Thanks,
Ludovic.