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From: arnold@apollo.uucp (Ken Arnold)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: MAJOR ANSI C FLAW (my opinion, of course)
Message-ID: <37e27f1c.ae48@apollo.uucp>
Date: Thu, 15-Oct-87 13:16:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: apollo.37e27f1c.ae48
Posted: Thu Oct 15 13:16:00 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Oct-87 09:16:28 EDT
References: <1132@gilsys.UUCP> <1246@bsu-cs.UUCP> <6543@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Reply-To: arnold@apollo.UUCP (Ken Arnold)
Organization: Apollo Computer, Chelmsford, MA
Lines: 18

In article <6543@brl-smoke.ARPA> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>) writes:
>In article <1246@bsu-cs.UUCP> dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
>>No modern system requires such short external identifiers.
>
>Excuse me, but if that were true you can bet that X3J11 would not
>have imposed the restriction!  We don't like it either, but it IS
>necessary for some environments.

Let's not overstate it.  It is *easiest* for some environements.  There
is always a work-around for the compiler writer.  It may be an ugly hack
(in fact, it almost certainly is), but it can be done.  It just may mean
that the global labels may not map trivially onto the names used by the
programmer, but, quite frankly, I'd rather the people living with older,
more limited systems have problems than giving the people working with more
modern systems limitations when trying to write portable code.


		Ken Arnold