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Portability (cont)

Compiled languages (e.g. C) must deal with different environments.

Unavoidable differences:

  • the compiled version is completely different on different architectures
  • different operating systems provide different collections of services
    (e.g. process/thread management, inter-process communication, memory management, ...)
Compilers/libraries can be ported, to give "similar" environment.

Standards (e.g. Posix) help to minimise the software differences.