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C not cross-platform? I thought C could be used on any platform,
provided you have a compiler on that platform (similar to have a jvm on
the platform to run java; without it, no java).
That's true to some extent. The C language exists for every platform, so
if you're willing to let people have your source code, they could compile
it for any platform they desire.
The problem usually isn't the C language itself. It's the APIs that are
available on each platform.
A C program is usually primarily made up of API calls. Some of those calls
are for APIs provided by the C language itself (the C runtime library) and
some of them are calls to APIs that are provided with the operating
system.
The problem is that not every system has the same APIs. OR they have the
same ones, but the parameters are slightly different or the results are
slightly different.
Organizations like POSIX exist to try to solve that problem. They've done
a good job of making any POSIX-compliant Unix system be compatible with
one another, but you do have to be careful to write your programs so that
they only call POSIX-compliant functions, and not anything that's specific
to the given OS.
So, while C can be cross-platform, there are still problems. Java
allieviates those problems by giving you a single compiled object that
SHOULD (theoretically) run anywhere, as long as you have the right version
of the JVM. The JVM's job (among other things) is to translate from the
Java-standard API to the platform-specific API -- so that there won't ever
be a compatibility problem. (At least, in a perfect world...)
IBM does not want to support multiple platforms, which is their right.
But I think IBM is going the wrong way, forcing us to maintain the
machine, code the programmes and display data on another platform, in
stead of enhancing/improving the original system.
I agree.
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