Xplo Eristotle wrote:
> 
> Bill DeWitt wrote:
> >
> > "Xplo Eristotle" <inq### [at] unforgettablecom> wrote :
> > >
> > > Most software is not written "for Windows".
> > ><snip>
> > > The truth is, most software is written for the most profitable
> > > platform..
> >
> >     Well, considering the comments in some of my programming classes many
> > people want to learn C++ so that "I can write programs for Windows",
> 
> "I can write programs for the largest platform." Or, "I can write
> programs for my own computer." I doubt that they choose Windows for any
> reason which is inherent to the platform, and my point stands.

	There are people who love classes and descent and inheritance. There
are folks right now who are discovering extending that idea to the
Windows Registry means it is impossible to strip unnecessary code and
DLL contents. It is called many things and I am in the minority politely
calling it code bloat. There is no way to know what code is unnecessary
without being the programmer. No compiler can be smart enough. 

	I have written programs for the largest (at the time in 1967 but who
remembers the RCA Spectrum?) and for the Bally Arcade in 4k Palo Alto
Tiny Basic and several in between. There are few reasons to choose a
graphics environment unless the purpose is graphic images. (I am also
familar with the Univac 1107 and the FASTRAN drum if anyone wants to
swap war stories.) 

	One produces a product and then adds environments to it if there is an
interest. From my point of view, I write what I want for my uses and
nothing more. I will make it available but in my Gnu mindset long before
Gnu "you do it." 

	One of my programs (RPN calculator when there were only a two others
and not as today when there is a race to collect all of them) was
received with "if you would only make it TSR" meaning invoked by a hot
key "I would pay for it." Sorry, no. Not my interest in this thing. 

	Which sort of gets us back to "Why I want to learn C++." And the answer
is that there is no good reason to learn it other than understand what
is going on in the commercial, repeat commercial, software industry
these days. 

	To wit, even three wit, it is difficult to find an application that
really requires a much a 200k of compiled code save for the graphics
hooks and handles and object code that bloats it by 10 to 100 times its
real size. One of my programs (Turbo Pascal) is 44k in native compile
with no calls to anything in DOS and bloats to over 700k even in linux
(Free Pascal) as a console app because of the methods used by the
compiler. 

> > looking
> > at the programming shelves of book stores, while there are more books for
> > using linux than there used to be, most of the programming books are
> > programming for Windows.

> Don't even get me started on shelf space.

	Most of the books are books about books and inherently worthless. 

	And that is one of the inherent mysteries of programming. I have never
heard any programmer credit any book. I have only heard people who are
not really progammers but looking for "how to" crediting books. Yet the
books sell. I am too stunned to be amazed. 

-- 
Remember the Ozone/CFC scare? The Ozone Hole gets bigger
but CFCs have been declining since 1995. Will CFCs be 
legal again? Is there a Tooth Fairy? 
	-- The Iron Webmaster, 114

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