Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!pacbell.com!pacbell!att!drutx!druwy!mab From: mab@druwy.ATT.COM (Alan Bland) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Long #defines (Re: Lattice/SAS C 5.10 HERE!) Message-ID: <6027@drutx.ATT.COM> Date: 28 Aug 90 01:32:31 GMT References: <14874@shlump.nac.dec.com> <1990Aug24.060138.2233@ariel.unm.edu> <1990Aug24.174645.15969@cs.umn.edu> <1990Aug27.081810.14126@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Sender: news@drutx.ATT.COM Reply-To: mab@druwy.ATT.COM (Alan Bland) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Denver Lines: 35 In article <1990Aug27.081810.14126@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >Once I learned I couldn't trust the Lattice C compiler to let my >in-Rad: development environment survive the compile cycle, I got >very conservative (I've got _decades_ of experience with buggy >compilers), changed to backing the edited code from Rad: onto >floppies before each compile, kept two generations of backups in >case the compiler trashed trackdisk.device or something equally >delightful on one of its forays into Rad:-destruct mode, and >_then_ compiled from Rad: from a copy of the modified code after >that. This is not meant to fault your programming skills, but you've been lucky not to have trashed RAD: by a mistake in your own program. I've done it on rare occasions, all you gotta do is get a wild pointer that happens to point into the RAD: area of memory, or at the system vectors that allow it to be recoverable. If you've ever caused the Amiga to go into FIREWORKS_MODE, you can almost bet RAD: went up in smoke with it. When I'm storing critical data like the only copy of a source file in a RAM disk, recoverable or not, I'm worried much more about my own mistakes and by public domain utilities than by a commercial compiler. Sure, you've uncovered a severe bug in Lattice C and there's no excuse for it to crash the machine, but odds are you'll lose more files from a RAM disk while debugging your own code than by compiling it. Keep copies of those files on floppy or HD whether you trust the compiler or not! >Kent, the man from xanth. > -- -- Alan Bland -- att!druwy!mab == mab@druwy.ATT.COM -- AT&T Bell Laboratories, Denver CO -- (303)538-3510