Editing Porting (section)

== Etymology ==
The term "port" is derived from the Latin ''[[wikt:port#Etymology 3|portāre]]'', meaning "to carry".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/148098|title=port, v.2|website=Oxford English Dictionary (OED Online)|publisher=Oxford University Press|access-date=December 21, 2017|url-access=subscription |quote=Origin: Of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from French. Partly a borrowing from Latin. Etymons: French ''porter''; Latin ''portāre''. ...  1. ''trans.'' To carry, bear, or convey; to bring.}}</ref> When code is not compatible with a particular [[operating system]] or [[Computer architecture|architecture]], the code must be "carried" to the new system.

The term is not generally applied to the process of adapting software to run with less memory on the same CPU and operating system.

Software developers often claim that the software they write is ''[[Portability (software)|portable]]'', meaning that little effort is needed to adapt it to a new environment. The amount of effort actually needed depends on several factors, including the extent to which the original environment (the ''source platform'') differs from the new environment (the ''target platform''), the experience of the original authors in knowing which [[programming language]] constructs and third party library calls are unlikely to be portable, and the amount of effort invested by the original authors in only using portable constructs (platform specific constructs often provide a cheaper solution).