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From: guido@boring.UUCP (Guido van Rossum)
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: rename library routine in Microsoft C 3.0
Message-ID: <6731@boring.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-Jan-86 18:51:55 EST
Article-I.D.: boring.6731
Posted: Fri Jan 17 18:51:55 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 20-Jan-86 04:41:14 EST
References: <6727@boring.UUCP>
Reply-To: guido@mcvax.UUCP (Guido van Rossum)
Organization: "Stamp Out BASIC" Committee, CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 38
Summary: Nevertheless, Microsoft C 3.0 is *great*!
Apparently-To: rnews@mcvax

In a previous article with the above subject I noted a strange error in
Microsoft C's library.  I received several letters, none very informative,
most to the tone of "Microsoft blew it again".

That's not fair!  While they may have slipped here, my general feeling
towards their 3.0 C compiler and library is extermely positive.
We received it just a week ago, and I have already decided to junk our
(2.15) Lattice compiler completely.  I have used it to compile some
20,000 lines of C, and with one exception it compiled flawlessly.
The exception was a compiler assertion error, apparently caused by a
too complicated expression (it was really HUGE).  I can live with that.

About two third of this code had earlier been used with Lattice, and MSC
proved to be *extremely* compatible.  They support almost all MS-DOS-
specific functions and #include files in the Lattice library.
The only thing that bit me (besides the rename bug) was the fact that
Microsoft has signed characters -- my fault for not writing portable code.

The other third had hardly ever left UNIX, and was full of things like exec,
chdir, stat, chmod and signal.  It was very easy to port, because Microsoft
implemented almost all well-known UNIX system calls that can possibly
be emulated on MS-DOS to some extent.  My main problems with porting it
were changing assumptions about file names (I was parsing paths and
only took '/' as a delimiter) and finding a replacement for fork/exec/wait
sequences -- not too difficult, since Microsoft provides functions spawn*
that combine these three calls.

But the best surprise was the execution speed of my program (even though
I directed all optimizations to saving space): sometimes twice as fast!

I could go on, but these are my actual experiences until now.  The manuals
are also of very good quality, and I am looking forward to using the overlay
feature of the new linker.  Next, I might try porting Gosmacs!

P.S.: please don't send any more mail concerning rename.

-- 
	Guido van Rossum, CWI, Amsterdam (guido@mcvax.UUCP)