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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!manis
From: manis@ubc-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.emacs,comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: uEmacs38b Fixes for ATARI ST
Message-ID: <970@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-Apr-87 13:06:43 EST
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.970
Posted: Tue Apr  7 13:06:43 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Apr-87 04:56:02 EST
References: <48200001@tub.UUCP> <273@xios.XIOS.UUCP> <611@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Reply-To: manis@ubc-cs.UUCP (Vincent Manis)
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science
Lines: 31
Xref: utgpu comp.emacs:759 comp.sys.atari.st:2597

In article <611@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
braner@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu.UUCP (braner) writes:

>(C experts hit 'j' now!)
Sorry, Moshe.

>I would strongly recommend using the WORD, etc macros when _you_ write
>C code to simplify porting later!  At least, use WORD when you access
>OS data-structures that are 16-bits wide, and use LONG when you need
>more than 16 bits.

No!!!! The correct way to achieve portability is via typedef, e.g.,

   typedef int lineno, column_no;
   typedef long bufferindex;

This way, anyone porting your code changes the type definitions (in a 
header file), and then recompiles. The use of meaningful type names makes
code clearer, and someone porting to a different system has the choice
of changing the type or accepting a limitation in maximum size (which might
be appropriate on a Z80 or something else on which longs are too
inefficient).

-----
Vincent Manis                {seismo,uw-beaver}!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!manis
Dept. of Computer Science    manis@cs.ubc.cdn
Univ. of British Columbia    manis%ubc.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa  
Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1W5      manis@ubc.csnet
(604) 228-6770 or 228-3061

"BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of 'Scientific Creationism'."