Re: what is the most suitable Linux platform for Programmers and software developers

From: Dances With Crows (danSPANceswitTRAPhcrows_at_gmail.com)
Date: 04/12/05 

Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 14:25:08 -0500

On 12 Apr 2005 11:42:31 -0700, upulDI staggered into the Black Sun and
said:

Include context when you post to Usenet. Yes, that "G2"
never-to-be-sufficiently-damned client doesn't do that automagically.
Cut-n-paste if you have to. Context restored:

>Peter T. Breuer wrote:
>>upulDI <upuldi@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> what is the most suitable Linux platform for Programmers and software
>>> developers?
>>Any one you like. Why should one be more "suitable" than another?
>>Surely a developer will maintain many platforms as production testbeds?

This is true. If you're developing a program for Alpha and x86, you'd
better have at least one Alpha and at least one x86 to test the program
on. And did you mean "hardware architecture", or "software
distribution" when you said "platform"? Or both? Details Count, and if
you don't provide these details, we'll probably guess wrong about what
it is you want. There are a few Spanish, French, and German speakers
here, so you can write in those languages if you feel your English isn't
good enough to convey all the details.

> Coz some languages may not support with all open source platforms. So
> before be throw on one platform I think it is very essential to study
> about its compatibilities etc...

You're being really, really vague about what it is you want to do. Be
more specific! What language were you thinking of using? What is the
end goal of whatever it is that you're doing? What is it that you're
doing?

C, C++, Perl, Python, Lisp, and a bunch of other languages are supported
on every distro and almost every architecture. Java is less
well-supported, but there are free-as-in-beer JDKs and JREs for at least
the x86, x86-64, PPC, and ARM. There are FORTRAN compilers, but FORTRAN
is a PITA. There is AFAICT no free COBOL compiler for Linux available,
but very few people need COBOL. If your programming problem does not
fit into one of {C, C++, Perl, Python, Lisp, Java, FORTRAN, assembly},
then you may have misunderstood the problem.

Distros have more similarities than differences. Look at the Linux
Standards Base, and write your programs such that they conform to the
guidelines there, and you'll have few problems. Do *not* write your
application so that it depends on kernel revision X.Y.Z; that will piss
off your customers unless you're developing something for an embedded
system. (If you *are* developing something for an embedded system, you
should've said something to that effect in your first message.) If your
application uses libFOO-1.2.3 , try compiling/running it with
libFOO-1.0.0 .. libFOO-1.2.2 , and see what the minimum libFOO version
you need is. Or link libFOO in statically, though that's a kludge.
Test the application on a recent {Mandrake,Fedora,SuSE,Debian} release;
if it works on all of them, it's probably OK. HTH, 

-- 
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin /    mail: TRAP + SPAN don't belong
http://www.brainbench.com     /                Hire me! 
-----------------------------/ http://crow202.dyndns.org/~mhgraham/resume

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