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From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: MAJOR ANSI C FLAW (my opinion, of course)
Message-ID: <2520@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Oct-87 01:13:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbmvax.2520
Posted: Fri Oct 16 01:13:00 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Oct-87 17:59:25 EDT
References: <2997@husc6.UUCP>
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 31

in article <2997@husc6.UUCP>, mckeeman@endor.harvard.edu (William McKeeman) says:
> Keywords: external names, length, bogosity to the max
> 
> In article <1132@gilsys.UUCP> mc68020@gilsys.UUCP (Thomas J Keller) writes:
>>	   ******  S  I  X  ******  character double case external names!!!!!!
>>    I wish I knew how to contact the committee and propose that they fix their
>>screwup.  Maybe someone who reads this will know, and pass it on.
> Yeah, its a botch.  But its not clear how x3j11 could have done
> otherwise since the culprit is ancient loaders.  How about defensive
> programming?  For everything you want to share with outsiders, have
> #include botch.h
> where you place defines like
> #define MyLovelyHandpickedName X00001

Instead of having to deal with ugly thing like this (what happens during
debugging), I claim they should have set a reasonable minimum number of
characters.  Maybe 32 or so, maybe no limits at all.  We are talking about 
a language that doesn't yet exits.  Meaning that everyone who wants to use
it will have to bring up a new|modified compiler on their systems.  While
they're bringing up new software, they have an ideal opportunity to FIX
their brain damaged linkers.  If a $200 home computer can get this right,
they certainly shouldn't have any problem with $500,000 mainframes.

> /s/ Bill
> W. M. McKeeman      mckeeman@harvard.edu
> 105 Aiken Computation Laboratory
> Harvard University, Cambridge MA   02138
-- 
Dave Haynie     Commodore-Amiga    Usenet: {ihnp4|caip|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh
   "The B2000 Guy"              PLINK : D-DAVE H             BIX   : hazy
    "Computers are what happen when you give up sleeping" - Iggy the Cat