Cross-Platform Development in C++

Preface Cross-Platform Development in C++ Building Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows Applications Syd Logan Addison-Wesley Preface During the ten or so years of my career prior to joining Netscape in 1998, I had the good fortune to work on a wide variety of projects, on an equally diverse set of platforms. I worked on an embedded kernel of my own design for a somewhat obscure CPU (the TMS34020). I obtained experience in Windows kernel development, writing file systems drivers for the Windows NT and Windows 98 kernels, to support the development of a Network File System (NFS) client. In user space, I mostly specialized in user interface development, initially developing Motif (Z-Mail) and OpenWindows applications for UNIX, eventually getting exposure to Win32 and the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) toolkit on the Windows platform. I even had the chance to write code for the Classic Mac OS to support a project that would be shipped by Apple, using the Mac Toolbox application programming interface (API). All of this code was written in the C language, and all of it was highly nonportable, written only with a concern for the job, and platform, at hand. But then I joined Netscape, as a UNIX expert of sorts. Initially, I was assigned the task of working on bugs in the 4.x Netscape browser, specifically handling defects filed against a port of the browser to IBM's Advanced Interactive eXecutive (AIX) platform. Netscape had a contract with IBM to ensure that bugs filed against the AIX version of the Netscape browser, or bugs that IBM considered important, were fixed in a timely fashion, and this contract funded my hiring. Similar deals were cut with SGI, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun, and perhaps others, and these deals funded additional Netscape staff. Two or three of us were assigned to deal with AIX, specifically. During this time, portability had not yet been perfected at Netscape. Although much of the codebase of Netscape was portable, the project did not have a unified build system, and the user interface code was completely platform specific. Many bugs had a decidedly platform-specific nature to them (hence the need to have separate teams to support individual platforms). Code that worked flawlessly on the Windows version of Netscape ran horribly on less well-supported platforms. Not all platforms had the same set of features, and features varied from platform to platform. Within a year of joining Netscape and fixing AIX bugs, I somehow earned my way onto the Netscape Instant Messenger team, and work on the new codebase based on the open source Mozilla platform. This team, which consisted of three engineers, was tasked with porting the AOL Instant Messenger client to the Netscape browser. The Netscape IM team was hastily formed right after AOL acquired Netscape, to try to bring AOL-based functionality into the application. (The other major AOL property integrated into Netscape was support for AOL Mail). The new Netscape client, in development at that time, was, as mentioned previously, based on the open source codebase named Mozilla. This codebase, at the time, was largely the product of Netscape engineers located in offices located in San Diego, and Mountain View, but contributions from the open source community were on the rise. (I refer to the project as Netscape/Mozilla in the remainder of this Preface). Netscape was in fierce competition with Microsoft for the browser market at this time, which meant the browser of course had to work well, and ship on time on the Windows platform. Netscape also generated significant advertising revenue through the Netscape portal, and clicks there were highest when a new version of the browser was released, and tens of millions of users visited the portal to download a fresh copy of Netscape. Supporting Netscape not only on Windows but also on Mac OS and Linux helped keep the numbeLogan, Syd is the author of 'Cross-Platform Development in C++', published 2007 under ISBN 9780321246424 and ISBN 032124642X.