macOS Many languages, one machine.

[BigDawgES]

First question:
I am a freshman at the U of Minnesota. I'm considering a computer science minor. I currently have a G5, and I would like to buy an iBook (when the next gen is released), but I worry about running into compatibility issues in the future (with different languages). I currently own VPC7--will that enable me to code in any 86x based language they throw at me?

Thank you for your advice!

 

[iBert]

What is your concern about? when doing assembly programming or C, C++, Java, etc? The problem you are wondering(if I understand your question) will arise when you strat accesing memory(I should sa registers) from your code. But, from my experience if you'll be doing C, C++, Java and languages like that you should not have problems. And the problems you cna think of having are compiler specific and you will not be able to change. Meaning that when creatining variables one platform can use a liitle more memory than another. Another thing to mention is, the difference will be frameworks or api. Windows has it's own api as Apple has it's frameworks. But this are mainly use for GUIs and maybe to access the registers, not to sure about the latter.

But, code wise. You should not have too much problems. Hope this help, wanted to sleep a little more. Went to bed around 4am doing homework and for like 5 hours couldn't find what was the problem I have on mi code.

 

[bastardx]

I would say as long as you are programming in high level languages(C, C++, Java, etc..) you shouldn't be harmed by using a Mac to develop your CS projects. Compilers are fairly good about makint sure that as long as you write standard code, that it will turn that code into a binary on just about any machine with access to the same API. Register access, etc, are also handled by the compiler, as it translates code that you, in theory understand, into something the computer understands. So, as long as your department doesn't force assembly of a specific architecture, or a windows-specific API, you are fine.

 

[BigDawgES]

Thanks!

Thanks for your responses! I think I understand now.