Ask HN: Resources for developing multi-platform native code libraries?

#1

Post by ahpaja » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 3:32 AM UTC

Can anyone recommend any course, books or learning materials when it comes to developing low-level and multi-platform native code libraries? Are there standard industry practices when it comes to building, packaging, and deploying native code libraries? It seems like a great skill to have, and I’d like to be better at it.

For context, I work in the mobile game industry developing for iOS and Android phones in a multi-platform (Mac, Window, Linux) development environment. You can do a lot without having to worry about writing low level code, but every once in a while, it becomes necessary. I have a basic working knowledge of these things, and of course, there are many case-by-case considerations when dealing with a device’s specific architecture, but much of my knowledge around this stuff is cobbled together from all sorts of different sources over the years. Anything more formal?

It seems like CMake and its reference guide is actually the closest and most informative thing that I have found in this ballpark. Any other recommendations or go-to sources for this kind software development?

Re: Ask HN: Resources for developing multi-platform native code libraries?

#2

Post by generic_user » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 4:27 AM UTC

I will assume by 'low level' you mean C/C++. Writing cross platform code at the system interface level is usually only something you do because you have to not something you do because you want to. It can be quite tedious and some times close to impossible. lets narrow the question to just C. And lets also narrow the specification to 'native' system interfaces. Lets also limit our operating systems to UNIX, Linux and Windows.

The goal of standardisation for C was in part to aid portability. That worked out to some degree. So thats the best place to start. The goal of POSIX was to standardize UNIX system interfaces across the various flavors. That worked out to some degree also. You also need to to get the interfaces for Windows, Linux and so forth because they all have various 'innovations' that have been created which are not adherent to any standard or portable.

At a minimum you should become familiar with the fallowing material.

* ISO/IEC 9899:1999 - ISO/IEC 9899:2011 http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/

* POSIX.1-2008 / IEEE Std 1003.1 http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/

* Linux system interfaces http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/

* Win API/Win32 API https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ff8...

Thats a lot of reading. A good starting point for a project is to code to the C standard and one abstract interface that wraps your main target OS. Then port portions of the implamentation for your interface to the various systems you need to run on. In reality there are a lot of specific factors that you need to take into account to design your portability strategy.

Re: Ask HN: Resources for developing multi-platform native code libraries?

#3

Post by panic » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 9:09 AM UTC

generic_user wrote: post #2

I will assume by 'low level' you mean C/C++. Writing cross platform code at the system interface level is usually only something you do because you have to not something you do because you want to. It can be quite tedious and some times close to impossible. lets narrow the question to just C. And lets also narrow the specification to 'native' system interfaces. Lets also limit our operating systems to UNIX, Linux and…

It's worth noting that Microsoft Visual Studio doesn't have very good C support: it still doesn't support all of C99. You can either use clang as a frontend on Windows (https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2015/12/04/clang-wit...) or use C++: almost all of C++11 is supported (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh567368.aspx).

Re: Ask HN: Resources for developing multi-platform native code libraries?

#4

Post by ahpaja » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 10:46 AM UTC

generic_user wrote: post #2

I will assume by 'low level' you mean C/C++. Writing cross platform code at the system interface level is usually only something you do because you have to not something you do because you want to. It can be quite tedious and some times close to impossible. lets narrow the question to just C. And lets also narrow the specification to 'native' system interfaces. Lets also limit our operating systems to UNIX, Linux and…

Thanks very much for this! I have been poking around a bit this week and this is indeed what I need. :)

More importantly, where you say "A good starting point for a project..." is exactly the kind of know-how and practical advice that I have found hard to come by in this area of software engineering. Any idea on where to find more of it (blogs, articles) would be always welcome.