Develope on Win XP, run on Linux ?

[jfdutcher]

I have a couple web sites up that I did the scripting for at work using Python on Win XP. Good, cheap hosters usually seem to run Linux...so I put them out on a Linux hoster. Transparent  (despite the claims) the code is NOT....always, always there is tweaking to get what runs flawlessly on Win to run on Linux.

Rather than try and find a 'good, cheap' windows hoster
I'm wondering if I convert my scripts to Rebol, also developing at work on Win XP, if I move them to Linux
(assuming the hoster lets me put Rebol in my CGI-BIN)
will the same problem arise. Has anyone down such ?
I know Rebol is touted as running on a bazillion OS's and devices...but is that after great effort or 'no problem'  

[Gabriele]

Unless you're doing strange things in your code, you usually just need to copy the script and it will work, whatever the OS.

[CarlRead]

I've found hardly any difference between running scripts on Windows, Linux or Amiga, assuming the version of REBOL is the same.  Fonts can cause minor presentation differences in View, (hardly a problem on a server), and Windows converts decimals to scientific notation after just a couple of decimals in some circumstances, (ie .001), while Linux and most other OSs don't, but other that that, REBOL really is a very cross-platform friendly language.

I currently don't have a Linux running on my PC, (and yesterday, not even a Windows - been major problems on this box of late;), but when I get Linux up again, the REBOL on it will share the same directory (in my Windows' partition) as my Windows' REBOL does.  This means that when I run a script on Windows or Linux it's the same script that's run - and ditto for when I edit them.  And I don't think I've ever had to think "Oh, I'll have to do so and so to get this to run on Windows/Linux."  I doubt your milage will differ.

[Guest]

I do most of the CGI legwork for REBOL.org.

I develop on windows and run live on UNIX.

There are some minor issues that I know of:

1.  read-cgi function (borrowed from http://www.rebol.com/docs/words/wread-io.html). If there are no CGI parameters it returns "" on one platform and none on another.....Work around code is:

Code:

 cgi-input: read-cgi
 if any [none? cgi-input
 "" = cgi-input][
  ;; do what you do when there's no CGI parameters
   ]

2. I found a problem with

Code:

sort/skip/compare/all

between the two platforms. That may be because we aren't always on the same release level, and sort had (in the past tense) a history of problems.

3. As you are working with different versions of REBOL you need to ensure that functions and words are available on both.

Like I still tend to write

Code:

if error? try [...]

rather than

Code:

attempt

because I know that will work everywhere.
(We have a broader issue at REBOL.org -- some of our core code is downloadable so has to run on any reasonable version of REBOL)

[Sunanda]

(Whoops, didn't know you could post as a guest -- that above post is from me).

Also worth noting that other REBOL.org team members are using Linux or different versions of Windows.

So the same codebase is deployed across UNIX, Linux and a couple of Windows with virtually no issues, other than the discipline not to use the goodies in the latest Core betas.