Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!fernwood!dumbcat!marc
From: marc@dumbcat.sf.ca.us (Marco S Hyman)
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Re: How to pay for reusable software
Message-ID: <293@dumbcat.sf.ca.us>
Date: 20 Apr 91 05:25:50 GMT
References: <1991Apr3.231849.13410@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <291@dumbcat.sf.ca.us> <396@smds.UUCP>
Organization: MH Software, Hayward, CA.
Lines: 28

In article <396@smds.UUCP> rh@smds.UUCP (Richard Harter) writes:

 [my comments on programmers who don't know what's in the standard libraries
  deleted.]

 > There is a general problem for the writers of portable code that standard
 > C libraries aren't standard across the universe of platforms that support
 > C.  Someday, maybe, all vendors will supply a standard C with standard 
 > libraries. 

Several people have pointed out that bsearch was not the best example for me
to use since it's not in everyone's "standard" library.  True. I'll use
another example.

More than once I've had to show people developing software on UNIX platforms
and using vi as their editor how to use the ctags command because I got
frustrated watching them constantly escape to the shell and run grep to find
what file a function was defined in.  Apparently none of them ever made it
through the letter C in the man pages.

If these programmers were too lazy to learn their own programming environment
what makes anyone think they will read the library manuals?  Portability is
not the issue here.  More libraries just leads to more documents not being
read.
-- 
// marc
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