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From: herndon@umn-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: C Builtin Funxions
Message-ID: <1700010@umn-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 24-Apr-86 22:19:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: umn-cs.1700010
Posted: Thu Apr 24 22:19:00 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 2-May-86 08:31:20 EDT
References: <2524@brl-smok.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:brl-smok:-252400:umn-cs:1700010:000:1259
Nf-From: umn-cs!herndon    Apr 24 21:19:00 1986


  I feel compelled to go on record as being VERY MUCH AGAINST
having reserved procedure names in C.  For those of us who have
ever written stand-alone code for PDP-11s, VAXen, ..., it is
a simple matter, as things stand, to compile our programs,
and then have them linked with our own versions of 'putc',
'read', etc. stashed in stand-alone libraries.
  One of the (in my opinion) great strengths of the C language
is that it does not have 'built-in' functions.  As a result,
it has somehow managed to avoid the imbroglio that Pascal
has gotten into.  If one user doesn't like the interface that
'printf' provides, or a whole bunch of users don't, they
are free to write their own functions and use those instead.
In addition, porting the C compiler to a different OS on the
same machine only requires that the libraries be re-written
(almost always).  Building those functions into the language
implies that there will be much code for special casing those
functions.
  On the flip side, the language may not be as efficient.
If the compiler writers want to allow these procedures to
be built-in to allow in-line procedures, I think this should
be an option (DEFAULT=OFF), and then the capabilities of
the language will be compromised as little as possible.