At 15:34 +0300 on 19/4/98, Stephen Davies wrote:
> Why?
>
> Pretty much every product that I can think of has separate 16-bit and 32-bit
> product groups.
>
> Albeit that most of those are MS products, there is no real reason why
> different environments should not have different solutions.
I know it's not entirely my place to intrude here, being the last candidate
to use *any* ODBC product, due to the fact that I keep my computer proudly
M$-free...
But being a Macintosh user, I've seen the problem in the Macintosh
industry. Almost every self-respecting application is programmed to fit
both PPC based Macintoshes and 68xxx Macintoshes - either in the same
executable or in separate executables. Of course, the difference between
PPC programming and 68K programming is not as great as the difference
between Win32 and Win16. But still, you have to do the extra work, and
maintain the extra branches in the source tree, and so on. And everybody
does that.
Also, being the "neighbourhood guru" (you know, when people who are
computer illiterate want something installed, they call the nearest person
who can tell a keyboard from a modem, no matter that he is a Mac/unix
person and they have a PC - they don't actually know the difference) - I
work with people who have Win16, and I always install the latest and
greatest software - latest version of Netscape Communicator, latest version
of Eudora Light, etc. - on their old Windows Machines. If Eudora and
Netscape bother to update their freeware for the benefit of that market, I
think someone who really believes in freeware should do the same.
I think the best way is to regard Win16 and Win32 as separate platforms.
Careful design *may* help you to write some of the code only once for both
platforms (for example, all the code that processes the data from the
Postgres backend). But the products should be separate, and should *try* to
have the same features - just like Eudora Light for Win16 and Win32.
You may say that you lack the expertise to write a good Win16 program.
Well, Postgres is a collaborative effort, and you may find someone who will
be willing to complement your work. You coordinate the features with
him/her, agree on which parts may be common to both of you, and then go
your separate ways about the separate drivers.
Herouth
--
Herouth Maoz, B.Sc. Work: herouth@oumail.openu.ac.il
Home: herutma@telem.openu.ac.il
HOME PAGE: http://homes.openu.ac.il/~herouth/
Internet technical assistant Open University, Telem Project
