Clem Clarke wrote in a message to All:

 CC> I have been developing various programs to hopefully sell in
 CC> the OS/2 market. 

 CC> With the demise of Borland's OS/2 compiler, lack of IBM support 
 CC> for OS/2 (I have reported a number of what I consider to be 
 CC> SERIOUS problems, and have got no fixes yet after 3 months), I 
 CC> am wondering what to do.

I probably own more bugs in OS/2 than you do.  Very few of them are
serious, in the sense that they cannot be worked around.  IBM does seem to
get around to fixing any formally reported bug, although sometimes it takes
them quite a while, in one case about 18 months.

You should also understand that some parts of OS/2 are better maintained
than others.  For example, IBM hates delving into HPFS, since the thing is
ancient spaghetti; while HPFS is pretty stable, there is a feeling that it
is like a house of cards.  PM and WPS, on the other hand, tend to get a lot
of attention.

 CC> It seems that Open 32 seems to be the safest method of 
 CC> developing software.  

It is fundamentally a method for porting software, not developing it.

 CC> I have DEVCON, but what do I need to develop WIN 32 programs 
 CC> under Windows?  CAn I use Borland BC 3.1 somehow?  I have IBM's 
 CC> Win 95 compiler, but that seems like massive overkill for my C 
 CC> programs.

You can use BC++ 3.1 for DOS to make 16-bit OS/2 programs, but this is not
supported and it involves quite a lot of trickery.  Don't do it.

IBM's Visual Age for C++ series of compilers is very nice.  They generate
fairly clean and fast code, and they are reasonably priced.  In any event,
this really is not the echo in which to discuss writing Win32 programs,
with one exception: if, for some reason, you want to cross-compile Win32
programs under OS/2, then your only option is Watcom C++.

One of the best compilers available for OS/2 is EMX, which is a port of GCC
and therefore freeware under the GNU General Public License.  It has no IDE
or similar ease of use features, but it is entirely capable of generating
excellent object code.  (There is a port of GCC to Win32 in development,
but it has serious problems at present.)

 CC> Also, for character mode flat Assembler programs, do I need to 
 CC> do anything special to get something running under Win 95 and 
 CC> OS/2?  

I'm not sure I understand your question.  IBM gives away the ALP assembler
for OS/2 on Devcon, and the INC files necessary to call into OS/2 are part
of the OS/2 Toolkit.  It is virtually impossible to write an assembly
language program that will run under both Win32 and OS/2, nor can I see why
you would want to do this.  It is possible to write C programs which are
source compatible under nearly any operating system simply by sticking to
the ANSI specification of the C language and library, but no equivalent
exists for assembly language programs.
 
-- Mike


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