dmd platform support - poll

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

John Reimer wrote:
> Hello Andrei,
> 
>> Walter Bright wrote:
>>
>>> John Reimer wrote:
>>>
>>>> Putting it bluntly, that's also the exact attitude that will
>>>> distance people from the language.  Show disdain for them, and you
>>>> are guaranteed to alienate people no matter how strong your argument
>>>> is.  That, and such disdain is usually not warranted because it is
>>>> reactive to a shallow response and fails to recognize the deeper
>>>> social issues hinted by such a response.
>>>>
>>> Back in the early DOS days, there was a lot of disdain for the
>>> platform. "Real" programmers used unix workstations, not toy 16 bit
>>> PCs. It turned out, though, that most of the fortunes were made
>>> programming for DOS, and eventually those programs and programmers
>>> migrated to 32 bits and brought the industry with it. DOS was the
>>> "gateway" programming platform.
>>>
>> Yah but due to other factors than its technical qualities. Leaving
>> those out of the story puts things in an odd light.
>>
>> Andrei
>>
> 
> 
> He he... that's one reason the polarization effect remains so intact.  
> Our point of view tends to hold a lot of sway on our interpretation of 
> events. :)  I understood what Walter was getting at, though.... just 
> that the disdain really didn't accomplish anything.
> 
> 
> If I allowed myself, I could easily be caught up in discussing why the 
> popularity of DOS was one of the greatest handicaps of the era... but 
> such an opinion is bound to clash with those those that made their 
> living from it (Hi, Walter :D ) Granted, my point of view, would have 
> been from the perspective of the consumer... and one who, as a teenager, 
> had no investment in it commercially. However, the motivation behind 
> Linux development and use was probably hugely influenced by the 
> industries' rigid hold on DOS 16-bit.... so we probably have DOS (and 
> win 3.1, win 95/98) to thank for Linux's growing popularity.

Such scenarios are very hard to play even in hindsight because of the 
effect of all butterflies involved. It's easy to imagine that if DOS's 
original inventor inspired himself from Unix more than CP/M we'd all be 
better off today. Even things as simple as path separators and newline 
separators would have changed a lot of things. Technically, clearly DOS 
was a sort of a distraction, a detour for the overall progress of the 
field, as were so were many other events. It would be a mistake to 
forget that fact in a purely technical discussion. But in a higher-level 
discussion it would also be a mistake to ignore that of all Universes 
possible, things played out the way they did and no amount of wishful or 
bitter analysis will change that.


Andrei