Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!dg!fs06!pds From: pds@lemming.webo.dg.com (Paul D. Smith) Newsgroups: comp.std.c Subject: Re: ANSI, K&R, H&S (was: Re: Just a minor new twist on free()) Message-ID: Date: 2 Nov 90 19:14:42 GMT References: <222@smds.UUCP> Sender: root@dg.dg.com Followup-To: comp.std.c Organization: NSDD/ONAD, Data General Corp., Westboro, MA Lines: 57 In-reply-to: sw@smds.UUCP's message of 1 Nov 90 17:44:53 GMT [] The final reference for portability, of course, is experience. [] Don't use features that have bitten you in the past on any machine. [] That's why I'm surprised by Paul Smith's comment: [] [] > In addition, I don't think I've seen a C program in the last 8 [] > years which does not use any language features except those found [] > in K&R I! [] [] What kind of insulated environments do these people work in, [] anyway? Until somewhat recently I've been working on a proprietary system; what good is it to make your C code portable when you have much larger portability issues (DG's proprietary AOS/VS operating system had OS-supported multi-tasking and other goodies) which will cause your code to not work on any other system without major re-working? Recently, on DG's new UNIX 88k RISC platform, we've been cuddled in the warm and fuzzy insulation of the GNU C Compiler; it's almost universally available on modern UNIX systems, and since I'm in networking it's kinda hard to write code where you don't have close ties to the OS. I have strong feelings about the enhancements to C that ANSI provides, mainly in the strong-typing (moderate-typing? :-) and data abstraction areas. I'm not willing to give up these badly needed enhancements to the language when I have a solid leg to stand on (the ANSI standard) and a widely available, free (!!) compiler which implements those enhancements. Sorry, but I'm stubborn and the "well, there's always some poor guy with a card punch reader -- what about him?" argument just doesn't cut any butter with me. All the more reason for him to get a new AViiON, IMO! :-) :-) :-) :-) <--Note smileys!!! I don't consider any program "LCD C" which uses external identifiers not unique in 6 monocase characters or internal identifiers not unique in 8 characters, and which doesn't *come with* a scheme for shortening them to acceptable levels, whether a seperate "compacter" program or the good old standby #define scheme. Saying it's easy to do if you need it is a cop-out, IMHO. I can't compile it as-is, so what's the point of all that pain and torture and sacrifice to make it super-portable? Portability is very important to me; I'm going to make all my code rigorously portable under the ANSI standard for the C programming language. (thank you, thank you! I now return the soapbox to the K&R I proponents for their equal time rebuttal...:-) -- paul ----- ------------------------------------------------------------------ | Paul D. Smith | pds@lemming.webo.dg.com | | Data General Corp. | | | Network Services Development | "Pretty Damn S..." | | Open Network Applications Department | | ------------------------------------------------------------------