From: petesk@microsoft.com (Pete Skelly)
Subject: Re: Portable?
Date: 26 Jul 92 09:13:40 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

In article <k+kmwwl.xtifr@netcom.com> xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters) writes:
>In <1992Jul25.224915.15078@news.Hawaii.Edu> tholen@galileo.ifa.hawaii.edu (Dave Tholen) writes:
>
>>Phil Lafornara writes:
>
>>>      This whole thread was started in response to the periodic postings
>>> of "when Portable OS/2 comes out."  I questioned that, and asserted
>>> that IBM would be introducing new bugs into the code when they did
>>> the translation.  End of story.
>
>>And I asserted that the probability of introducing bugs was increased, but
>>not 100 percent.  Once again, you're using "would be" as though it was
>>absolutely guaranteed that portable OS/2 will be buggier than "something
>>not translated from assembly" (insert Windows NT here if you feel that it
>>has been implied).
>
<Good credentials deleted>
>
>
>Anyway, I have to disagree with the statement that "translating code
>from assembler to C introduces bugs."  Believe me, I've done a *lot* of
>it, and this is far from *always* true.  Often true, perhaps.  But I
>*don't* blindly try to do a one-to-one mapping between the C and
>assembly code.  I find out what the assembly code is doing, and
>*design*, then write C code to do the same thing.  But *not* necessarily
>the same way.  With this approach, I find that I cure *almost* as many
>bugs as I introduce, on the average.

This is true for the work you've done, but in some of the stuff I've
done, it's not.  And it especiall sucks for BIG projects.  With lots
of people.
>
>This is essentially what MS has been doing with NT--working with the
>design specs of DOS and Windows, and writing C code to do the same
>thing.  I'd bet money on this.  And, I strongly suspect that IBM is
>doing the same thing in their efforts to create a portable OS/2.  They
>don't *need* to read the assembly code to port it to C--they just have
>to know what it's doing (in detail), and write C code to do the same
>thing.
Yeah, but neither DOS or Windows have Preemptive multitasking, Security,
Installable Filesystems, etc, etc, etc
It's not quite the same.

>Now, I admit that I don't work for IBM or MS, so I don't know what
>either the OS/2 or NT code is really like.  But from where I sit, I
>cannot see one good reason to think that more bugs will be introduced in
>the creation of portable OS/2 than in the creation of portable
>DOS/Windows (NT).   If NT has to read FAT filesystems, if it has to
>handle interrupts generated by DOS programs, then it has code, DOS code,
>ported from assembly.  Or so it seems to me.

I myself never stated that, and I don't remember Phil stating that.  In fact
I don't remember Phil mentioning much, if anything about NT.  What I stated
is that Portable OS/2 will take time, 'cause the process of translation,
plus the process of debugging, will take time.

>
>If Phil has a rational explanation of why MS's porting efforts are less
>likely to introduce bugs than IBM's, I admit I'd be interested to hear
>it.  But all I've heard so far are comments that should apply equally to
>OS/2 or NT.

MS is not porting NT from anything.  It was designed portable from the
beginning.

>-- 
>Chris Waters    | the insane don't | NOBODY for President!
>xtifr@netcom.COM| need disclaimers | Because Nobody's perfect!!

petesk@microsoft.com
My Opinions....

From: yuk@hpopd.pwd.hp.com (Yuk Lun Chan)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 08:29:24 GMT
Subject: Re: nt, an assessment
Organization: Hewlett-Packard NSG-PWD, UK.