Talk:Computing platform

Definition

I think there should be something here about the vagueness of the term platform. Most people mean platform to mean hardware-type/architecture + operating system, but what about:

VirtualPC on Macintosh hardware?

VMware? Is VMware on intel with a windows base-OS a different platform than VMware on intel with a Linux base-OS?

Java?

Hard or soft domains on high-end HP, IBM, or Sun hardware?

I think that VirtualPC and VMware should be considered simulated platforms. However their purpose is mainly to simulate a different platform than the host OS. I think the purpose of a platform is to allow a software to run on a new device, processor, machine, etc.. Roughly, I think a platform is a structure to allow other things to stand or operate.

Simply said I think 'a platform is a structure(HW or SW) that allows an application to run'.

Please see from a software developer/vendor point. For example a new processor is manufactured but nobody can use it. And if you wanted to develop games or a word application to develop and sell. You would need a platform to interface with the IC. Most of the time, this would mean an OS. But for example, many do not consider BREW as an operating system. (BREW allows Java and other software to run). Also, many consider Java a platform. A platform does not have to be as sophisticated as an OS. A platform is like a low level OS.

When a new processor is manufactured, there is a scramble to create a platform. Should we create a separate category, e.g. software platform, ? disambiguation page ? Jondel

Hi! I (answered myself!)will be creating a software platform in a little while. Somebody (thats me) has to create a relationship explanation between platforms and APIs.

Done. Please feel free to edit or delete the software definition.

Would like to add

• 'A platform is crucial element for APIs to function.'
• Some phones don't have a full fledged OS but J2MEs/Java to allow developers to create games and applications. Jondel

Software

When a new device, computer or chip comes out, developers would like to develop software applications. For example, when a new phone comes out, some would like to develop games. The problem is how to interface. As mentioned, a platform ussually refers to the OS. But they are not always the same thing. An example is Java or J2ME and BREW on phones. Although Java is a language, its JVM allows it to perform as a platform. Ussually, a complete set of APIs constitute a platform. Jondel

Java

This use of the word platform for Java came about only because Sun decided to call it that. It creates a difficult time for the primary definition and is ambiguous. It should be set aside on a disambiguity page, and/or taken out of this article. A computing platform consists of a specific type of CPU and Operating System. Ste4k 13:39, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

GUI

Adding GUI as a platform, although Windows bundled GUI, however kernel is OS, Gnome and KDE also in my view a platform on it's own i.e. Gnome GTK+ Vs Kde QT. There are different although most Linux Distribution support both. —Preceding unsigned comment added by My wing hk (talk • contribs) 11:14, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

More to do

Houston, we have a problem. We have a page on "Computing platform" and another on "Platform computing". The content overlaps by about 80% (and neither is very good). We need to merge the content, turn one page into a link to the other, and then build out from there.

The definition of computing platform used here is much too limited. A good starting point would be the book Invisible Engines (Evans/Haqiu/Schmalensee). We need to introduce the distinction between one-sided platforms (e.g. Sony Playstation) and two-sided (e.g. MS Windows). The whole Platform-as-a-Service (e.g. Google App Engine) and Software-as-a-Service (e.g. Salesforce.com) also needs to be tied in. Geoffarnold

I agree with this and the section on definition. Shouldn't there be a disambiguation section or page that categorizes what the word "platform" means. Is J2EE a platform? How about Facebook as a development platform? Can one define a platform as a set or combination of other technologies? Scottlawrencelawson (talk) 19:56, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Grammar problems...?

Could someone please clarify what is meant in the following phrase?

It is an agreement that the platform provider gave to the software developer that logic code will interpret consistently

I believe there could be a missing preposition or something...anyways, it is a bit confusing, so if you could clear it up it would be greatly appreciated.Weekipedian (talk) 21:39, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

A template for all the computing platforms

So it would be nice if someone could create a template for all the different computing platforms. I think it would be enough if it's a just a small icon of the OS and a hovertext on it with the name of the OS.

For example this logo could be used for Android: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Android_robot.svg (with the hovertext being "Android").

I thought it was needed when editing List of Wikipedia mobile applications but these templates could also be used for all games / software articles.

--Fixuture (talk) 17:30, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

I think the first paragraph is a bit complicated and could use a little bit of simplification

I tried to simplify it just a little bit in 2-3 words but please, I'm far from being an expert in the subject... I am just learning some programming now; Please if you can simplify it a bit more... Thank you... Ben-Yeudith (talk) 01:13, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

"First-party titles" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect First-party titles. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 08:09, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

"First-party software" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect First-party software. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 08:35, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

"Computing platform (version 2)" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Computing platform (version 2). Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 08:40, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

What constitutes a hardware example?

In most cases, the examples in Computing platform § Hardware examples combine a particular operating system with hardware on which that operating system runs.

Some of them combine a particular line of hardware with one or more operating systems that support that line of hardware. For example, Wintel combines 32-bit or 64-bit x86 "PC-compatible" machines with Windows, OpenVMS combines either Alpha-based or Itanium-based machines with OpenVMS, and various mainframes combine the mainframe line in question with whatever vendor OSes run on it (for example, IBM's mainframes have several IBM OSes that run on them).

The hardware defines the platform by itself only if only one OS runs on the platform and that OS runs only on that platform. For example, an x86 "PC-compatible" machine isn't a platform for anything other than developing OSes; a Windows program will run on x86+Linux only with Wine or something such as that, and a Linux program will run on x86+Windows only with something such as the Windows Subsystem for Linux (and WSL2 is a bit weird, in that it's a Linux kernel running in a virtual machine, with user-mode Linux code running on top of it; most of that software probably has no clue that there's Windows in there). An IBM mainframe could run Linux in one virtual machine, z/OS in another, and z/VM including CMS in another.

Current video game consoles also include firmware or software, although that's bundled with the hardware and the hardware is pretty much intended to run the firmware or software in question, so that's a case where you could view the platform as an integrated unit.

However, I might still be included to title this section "Hardware and firmware or software examples". Guy Harris (talk) 07:50, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

OK, I'm using Computing platform § Hardware examples for hardware that's not too strongly tied to one OS. Raspberry Pis, for example, might mostly run Rapbian, but plenty of other OSes are listed on their page.

I'm using subsections of Computing platform § Operating system examples for broadly multi-platform OSes (e.g., Linux), OSes running on a more narrow set of hardware platforms (e.g., OpenVMS), and OSes tied to a particular hardware platform. Guy Harris (talk) 08:54, 21 August 2022 (UTC)