Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!purdue!i.cc.purdue.edu!j.cc.purdue.edu!pur-ee!iuvax!bsu-cs!dhesi
From: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Standard for file transmission
Message-ID: <2989@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Date: 11 May 88 18:24:52 GMT
References: <292@cullsj.UUCP> <537@sol.warwick.ac.uk> <4521@hoptoad.uucp> <2894@bsu-cs.UUCP> <1083@maynard.BSW.COM>
Reply-To: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi)
Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, Indiana
Lines: 28

In article <1083@maynard.BSW.COM> campbell@maynard.UUCP (Larry Campbell) writes:
[justifying the claim that source postings are an adequate substitute for
binaries]
>Nope.  All you need is Turbo-C (about $60 retail) and Turbo Pascal (a bit
>less, I think).
...
>I can't understand someone spending thousands of dollars on PC hardware,
>hundreds of dollars on modems and telephone charges, and then balking at
>shelling out 60 bucks for an _excellent_ C compiler!

This misses the point.  If somebody posts source that is compilable
only by the Datalight C compiler, or by MIX C, or by Microsoft Pascal,
or by Utah Pascal, or by CHASM, or by the Microsoft Macro assembler, or
by any of dozens of other language translators, having Turbo C and
Turbo Pascal would likely mean an investment of a few days or weeks (or
months) making that source work.

As I said before, microcomputer operating systems costing less than
$300 do not come bundled with any decent language translators.  Users
buy their own, and they are seldom compatible with each other.

ANSI C and cheap, conforming C compilers may change this to an extent.
But there will always be many things that will not be efficiently
doable in portable C.  High-performance graphics are one glaring
example.

Finally consider that not all users are, or want to be, programmers.
-- 
Rahul Dhesi         UUCP:  !{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!dhesi