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From: david@ukma.UUCP (David Herron)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: 6 char externs and the ANSI standard
Message-ID: <270@ukma.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Nov-84 15:21:18 EST
Article-I.D.: ukma.270
Posted: Wed Nov  7 15:21:18 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 13-Nov-84 06:24:45 EST
References: <13241@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Organization: Univ. of KY Mathematical Sciences
Lines: 44

> 
> Having read the mail, I'm changing my vote...I'd like to
> see the standard require long externals than 6 characters.
> The suggestion that compilers check for potential collisions
> isn't bad, but wouldn't it make more sense to let lint do the
> checking?  That's where portability problems have traditionally
> been detected.  Also, it's lint, rather than the compiler, that
> gets to see all the programs together and can detect externals
> from different files that wouldn't be distinguished. I'd like
> to see two kinds of output: lint should give a "high water
> mark" ("The linker must examine the first XXX characters if
> cases are distinct and the first YYY characters if they are not."),
> and should flag externals (or internals, for that matter) that
> don't differ within some settable number of characters.
> 			- Jim Van Zandt
> 
> 

Who actually uses lint?  Around here we never got used to using
it because our only machines were two 11/23's and an 11/10 and it
wouldn't fit.

I am actually curious how useful it is.  I have written one program
using lint regularly while writing it, and all the things lint found
were somewhat silly.  So, I went to my other programs (written over
the last few years) and ran lint on them....same result.  Do I just
write good code or what?
-----------------------------------------
David Herron
Phone:	(606) 257-4244 (work, phone will usually be answered as "Vax Lab").
	(606) 254-7820

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