Writing Easily Portable Code

M. D. Geib
Vista Control Systems Inc.

In a multiplatform computing environment, software developers must take steps to ensure that systems are easily ported from one hardware or operating system platform to another. Vista Control Systems is completing a project to redesign our Vsystem software for portability. In our talk, we will discuss how we planned for portability by making use of standard interfaces, carefully isolating platform-specific functions, minimizing dependency on system services and making use of standard languages. We will also discuss our plans to evaluate the success of our new system by monitoring the ease with which it ports to new platforms.