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From: john@frog.UUCP (John Woods, Software)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: MAJOR ANSI C FLAW (my opinion, of course)
Message-ID: <1875@frog.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 20-Oct-87 16:39:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: frog.1875
Posted: Tue Oct 20 16:39:00 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 22-Oct-87 03:12:48 EDT
References: <1298@wyszecki.munsell.UUCP>
Organization: Superfrog Heaven [ CRDS, Framingham MA ]
Lines: 27

In article <1298@wyszecki.munsell.UUCP>, jwf@munsell.UUCP (Jim Franklin) writes:
> The proposed ANSI C limit of 6 characters on external symbols is
> completely bogus. ...  If I had to guess, most of
> this obsolete software is owned by very large companies like IBM, DEC,
> HP, PRIME, etc.  These companies have large resources ($$$ and people),
> and they also sell a lot of systems/software. They therefore have a large
> incentive to fix their obsolete software, and the resources to do it.
> 
No, they have a lot of ability to kill the C standard dead, dead, dead, by
simply telling the Government "It will cost you one million billion skillion
dollars to upgrade every linker/assembler/compiler on every system you
currently have.  Have a nice day."

As long as there are DP managers who have lots of bucks and don't want to
be bothered with change ("Gimme 1401 Assembler, none of this weeny C
nonsense!"), and as long as we tasteful C programmers want to separate them
from some of that money, we are going to have to wear the straightjacket of
6 characters/monocase.

--
John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1101
...!decvax!frog!john, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw@eddie.mit.edu

"Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity.  It
eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation."
		-- Johnny Hart