Re: In and under

["Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher -at- STARBASECORP -dot- COM>]

I've been on vacation, so I'm jumping into the middle
of this thread. Hope I'm not too far off base.

Pat M says in response to some other comments...


> >Unfortunately, your example is really a mixed batch of fruit:
> >UNIX is an operating system, Mac is hardware, and Windows is an
> >environment. Oranges, apples, and bananas I think.

> I have the same question Bev stated later in her post concerning "platform."
> What do we mean by "platform" in the context of computing?  Operating
> systems are pretty straightforward and hardware, pretty much so.
> But "platforms?"  Que es?

If we use a more or less literal definition of the word "platform"
in the software use of the term, the "platform" becomes the
foundation on which the software sits. It would then follow that
the "platform" would be anything that is part of the necessary
undercarriage for the program. In this case, the OSs or the combinations
of OS and GUI are the platforms *on* which the software runs. So,
saying that the software runs on Mac, Windows, and Unix/Motif platforms
makes perfect sense (at least to me %-)  ).

I tend to think of "environments" as the shell or paradigm in which
the user works. Examples would be...
   Program X moves the OS/2 workplace environment to Windows.
or
   The developers all work in C++ programming environment.

(It would be possible to work in the same environment on
several different platforms.)

"Under" seems to have outlived its usefullness. I've even seen
the expression "... on top of Windows".

Sue Gallagher
StarBase Corp, Irvine CA
sgallagher -at- starbasecorp -dot- com