Software Development: The Linux Problem
Posted on:December 06 2007
Warning: Senseless rant ahead.
Since I am developing cross platform software like Irrlicht, irrKlang and commercial games, I only had constant problems on one single system: Linux. Writing applications on this operation system can be a pain in the *** sometimes. Windows and MacOS don't have these problems at all or at least in a very reduced form only. Maybe this is the reason why Linux is so slowly getting accept by the average user. The problem is that if you write software which runs on the Linux system you are using, you can not be sure that it will work with another linux distribution or even on the same distribution but a different version. Different gcc compiler versions will produce code which may have bugs, _other_ bugs, or interfaces wich are not binary compatible, different kernel versions cause side effects you never could have thought of, some libraries will behave totally different on other hardware or if they are simply another version, and some features suddenly stop to be supported or work. In short: Backward or fortward compatibility hell. Fortunately, I have the subjective feeling that the situation has improved during the last years at Linux. The current work around for this mess is the open source community: Everybody is able to patch everything. And maybe this is also a part of the cause of this problem. So maybe Linux wouldn't have that problem if it wouldn't be that open. Just a thought.
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D.N.Perfors
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2007-12-06 09:28:00
hybrid
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leo
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blah
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hybrid
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bull
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stef_
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Virion
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Virion
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stef_
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jens
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steve
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Alaa Salman
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Alaa Salman
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3ddev
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hybrid
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CuteAlien
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trunks14
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trunks14
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trunks14
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jens
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CuteAlien
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Charles Joseph C
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Q-efx
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CuteAlien
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Q-efx
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