Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!STONY-BROOK.SCRC.SYMBOLICS.COM!jrd
From: jrd@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.SYMBOLICS.COM (John R. Dunning)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Clearing memory [was Re: Another great quote from Mr. Good]
Message-ID: <19880807215637.4.JRD@MOA.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
Date: 7 Aug 88 21:56:00 GMT
References: <1103@atari.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 17


    Date: 5 Aug 88 17:43:31 GMT
    From: imagen!atari!apratt@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  (Allan Pratt)
[... clearing all of memory ...]
    This takes a nontrivial amount of time.  Nobody promised that the space
    after your declared BSS and before your initial stack pointer would be
    clear, but it has always been that way and some programmers chose to
    depend on it.  This is called a "settled expectation" and we have to
    live with it in the name of compatibility. 

I believe it's a bug that programmers rely on undocumented features like
that.  Perhaps you want to allow those old (buggy) programs to continue
to run; I would too, in Atari's position, but please, don't penalize the
rest of us for those vendors' bugs.  I'd be completely pleased if you'd
provide a switch to turn the behaviour off.  Lacking that functionality,
those of us who care about such things (maximizing performance) will
continue to bludgeon the the supplied code over the head.