[NTLUG:Discuss] OT: Porting Question

[David White]

 > I apologize for the off topic post, but what would be a good resource 
for learning how to port programs from one OS to another?  Thanks, 
Dennis in Victoria

This is a very general question and I don't think there'd be a single 
resource that'd provide useful answers. There are a number of factors to 
consider:

- What are the OSes? How similiar are they? Porting from Linux to 
FreeBSD is alot easier than porting from Linux to PalmOS.
- What language(s) is the program written in? How good is the language 
support on the target platforms? If the program is written in a fairly 
high-level, portable language like Python, and it is available on the 
target platform then it will likely be very easy to port. If it's 
written in a language that is not well-supported on the target system, 
or a low-level language, then it may be very difficult to port.
- Does the program use platform-specific features? Use of threading and 
windowing libraries in particular can affect the portability of the program.

The best resources you could probably find on this would be resources on 
the platform that is the target of the port.

David