Re: [Devel] C++ API for FreeType - Portability

[Vadim Plessky]

On Friday 11 January 2002 23:40, Manuel Bleichenbacher wrote:
|   None of the major libraries in the open source world is written in C++.
|   That's for good reasons.

Pardon?
Qt2 and Qt3 are written in C++.
Both version of Qt library are pretty well portable - you can find it on 
FreeBSD, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX (in addition to all Linux distributions)
 
[...]
|
|   The situation arises for example on Solaris, where you find three
| different popular compilers: Sun C++ 4.x, Sun C++ 5.x /6.x and gcc. They
| are completely incompatible with regard to the produced code. They might
| compile the same piece of C++ code but they generate code with incompatible
| object layouts and their runtime libraries are in conflict. I know less
| about the situation with Linux compilers but I could image that the
| situation is similar with gcc 2.xx, gcc 3.xx and the Intel compilers.

major release means *incompatibility*  between binaries.
So, answer is "yes": gcc2 is not binary compatible with gcc3.

|
|   And last but not least, a lot of embedded systems have no C++ compiler
| and thus would have no new freetype versions.
|

Qt/Embedded is also C++.
It's ported to Sharp Zaurus (part of standard distribution) and works on 
Compaq iPaq.
Qtopia (QT/Palmtop Environment) is written in C++
 
|   So please, don't port freetype to C++ if you think it should stay one of
| the major libraries used in diverse applications and any size of system.
| Port it to C++ if you do it for educational purposes but do not otherwise
| care if anybody else uses the library.
|
|   Wrappers for C++ (and Per, Python, Java, PHP etc.) are very much welcome,
| of course.
|
|   -- Manuel

-- 

Vadim Plessky
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