Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!unido!mikros!mwtech!martin From: martin@mwtech.UUCP (Martin Weitzel) Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386 Subject: Hard coded limits (was Re: LINK COUNT TABLE OVERFLOW) Message-ID: <840@mwtech.UUCP> Date: 17 Jul 90 18:24:23 GMT References: <1990Jul13.093105.4746@sco.COM> Reply-To: martin@mwtech.UUCP (Martin Weitzel) Organization: MIKROS Systemware, Darmstadt/W-Germany Lines: 27 In article <1990Jul13.093105.4746@sco.COM> larryp@zeus.UUCP (Larry Philps) writes: >In article peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >>Is there any way of telling the root fsck to use a bigger link count >>table? I'm tired of re-fsck-ing root after a crash. [...] >In a word: No. Sorry. > [...] >Easy if you have the source, the constant is MAXLNCNT >(or something close), impossible if you don't have the source. Why do so many programs use hard-coded limits at all? Poor software design? This is allways my first idea - my second idea is: The original author might not have imagined that his or her software is delivered without the source! Sometimes I whish there were a way to put some pressure onto the vendors of software to *force* them to deliver the source at least partially, if any of these limitations come up. IMHO many many working hours of the software engineering people are spent to find work arounds for problems, which could be fixed in ten minutes or less if - at least parts - of the source were available. -- Martin Weitzel, email: martin@mwtech.UUCP, voice: 49-(0)6151-6 56 83