home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
- Path: sparky!uunet!microsoft!wingnut!petesk
- From: petesk@microsoft.com (Pete Skelly)
- Subject: Re: Portable?
- Message-ID: <1992Jul24.103047.13741@microsoft.com>
- Date: 24 Jul 92 10:30:47 GMT
- Organization: Microsoft Corporation
- References: <1992Jul23.041926.5955@news.Hawaii.Edu>
- Lines: 53
-
- In article <1992Jul23.041926.5955@news.Hawaii.Edu> tholen@galileo.ifa.hawaii.edu (Dave Tholen) writes:
- >Pete Skelly writes:
- >
- >>> I stand by what I said earlier. Translation increases the probability of
- >>> a bug being introduced, but does not guarantee it. Phil said bugs "ARE"
- >>> introduced; you are saying that bugs "WILL BE" introduced. I disagree that
- >>> the probability is 100 percent.
- >
- >> Let me say this. SO.
- >> There is also not a 100% probability that you won't sprout wings, turn blue,
- >> and begin reciting the Inferno by Dante in Hebrew.
- >
- >So? In case you missed the earlier part of this thread, it all started when
- >the implication was made that NT is less buggy than OS/2, because NT was
- >coded in C, whereas portions of OS/2 were translated by hand from assembly
- >to C. And this is nothing more than FUD. The biggest variable of all is
- >the individual programmer, and I'm quite certain that there are programmers
- >out there who can translate assembly to C with fewer bugs than somebody else
- >who writes in C directly. The reverse is also true. And it's also not a
- >matter of who has the better programmers, IBM or Microsoft, because in both
- >cases it's entirely possible that their best programmers aren't even assigned
- >to the development of OS/2 or NT. It's the quality of the programmers who
- >are working on the project, and I really don't care whether IBM had to
- >translate some assembly to C or not. What counts is the product delivered
- >to me, the customer. This whole digression of probability statistics has
- >lost sight of the implications for the consumer of PC operating systems.
- >Stop spreading FUD, and stop trying to conceal it by going off on tangents.
- >If Microsoft can deliver a product with fewer bugs in less time, more power
- >to them. But if their programming is as bad as their probability statistics...
-
- Ummmm, I though this thread had to do with the fact that IBM would have
- trouble with conversion to other archetectures. The title of this thread
- is "Portability". At the very start of this thread, it was implied that
- IBM would not be able to QUICKLY convert to other archetectures, because
- translation into C and catching bugs introduced by the translation would
- take time. This came up because a bunch of OS/2 Zealots were saying
- that portable OS/2 was basically here. The key part of this thread, as I
- remember it, was that portability would take longer. We then got sidetracked
- into this portability->bugs thing.
-
- The implications for the consumer as I see it. Well, portable os/2 won't
- probably be released tomorrow. I will be released, but it'll take time.
- It may or may not be more buggy than other products.
-
- Good programmers are not those who can translate Assembly into C with few
- bugs. Good programmers are those who can design the system in the first
- place with less chance for bugs.
-
- petesk@microsoft.com
- My Opinions....
- Have a Nice Day.
-
-
-