That's something I've been wondering for a while now.
Take Notepad++ for instace. Wikipedia tells me it was written in C++ and it's Windows-only.
Now take PHP. Wikipedia tells me this is also written in C++, but that runs on other OS too.
But I see more languages then just C++ for PHP... how is this done? Do they make some new code in C++, see it works and then figure out how to do it in Perl, or what happens?
分享 It depends whether you are using platform specific libraries or not. Notepad++ is a desktop application and it needs a GUI toolkit. Although there are cross-platform C++ libraries like Qt and wxWidgets, Notepad++ is probably using a Microsoft's specific technology. Thus it can't be ported in other platforms.
PHP on the other side is a WEB scripting technology so there's no need of GUI library. Also there is much more stronger interest in running PHP in many platforms than there is for Notepad++. That is an incentive for the developers to make the C++ code cross platform.
Avoid platform specific libraries isn't the only thing needed for a C++ cross platform application. It usually means coding for the least common denominator and keeping different code branches for every platform supported. Although C++ is a cross platform language, each system has its own intricacies. In fact the code could be different in the same platform as well, if a different compiler was to be used. Try downloading the C++ source of an open source application, like PHP for example. You would notice that much of the code is the same for all platforms, but there would be different bits also. Sometimes preprocessor directives are used, elsewhere totally different source files are involved.
So creating a true cross-platform C++ application is a hard job and it is usually created when there is a strong incentive to do so and many people are involved. An one-man application like Notepad++ really can't be cross-platform.
分享
