D vs Java

[Sean Kelly]

pragma wrote:
> In article <dvrrca$103i$1 at digitaldaemon.com>, Don Clugston says...
>> In digitalmars.com digitalmars.D:35128, Walter said of the difference in 
>> reals between Linux and Windows:
>>
>>>> pragma's DDL lets you (to some extent) mix Linux and Windows .objs.
>>>> Eventually, we may need some way to deal with the different padding.
>> I think it's a pipe dream to expect to be able to mix obj files between
>> operating systems. The 96 bit thing is far from the only difference.
>>
> 
> I read Walter's remark, and it came to me like a shot from the blue.
> 
>> Now, he's quite knowledgeable, but I'd love to prove him wrong on this 
>> one. I find it hard to believe that it would be impossible. I guess the 
>> question is, will the subset of functionality that works be sufficient 
>> to be useful? I guess we won't know until the ELF side is working.
>>
>> "Compile once, run everywhere that matters"? (Win, Linux, Intel Mac).
> 
> Pipe dream or not, I think its worth looking into.  And you're right: the
> portable subset of features may be just barely usable.  Until we get some people
> really pounding away on this, we'll never quite know.

For what it's worth, there was a thread on comp.std.c++ recently about a 
standard shared library format, and someone said that library formats 
have recently become sufficiently similar that this is a possibility.


Sean