Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1+some 2/3/84; site dual.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!dual!mats From: mats@dual.UUCP (Mats Wichmann) Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards,net.bugs.4bsd Subject: Re: Bug in Unix System V C compiler Message-ID: <736@dual.UUCP> Date: Sat, 4-Aug-84 11:21:50 EDT Article-I.D.: dual.736 Posted: Sat Aug 4 11:21:50 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 5-Aug-84 00:27:48 EDT References: <1068@sdcsvax.UUCP> <3705@brl-tgr.ARPA> <2978@utah-cs.UUCP> <3726@brl-tgr.ARPA> <209@sdchema.UUCP> Organization: Dual Systems, Berkeley, CA Lines: 17 The sharp wit and biting sarcasm of the referenced articles has me falling asleep. I am not going to hope that this old argument can be put to rest, but....could we please try? The use of long identifiers provided in the BSD compiler is typical of nonportable language exentsions that we have all suffered through with many other languages, and it would have been nice if this could have been avoided with C. However.....now AT&T is muddying the waters with flexnames in the Sys V compiler, while the ANSI standard proposal does not call for this `feature'. It is hard to flame someone for using the tools available to him locally, UNLESS that person is specifically working on a commercial product designed to be portable. For some reason we (and I don't claim innocence here myself) seem very ready to pronounce the author of a program an idiot for using some particular feature. Mats Wichmann Dual Systems Corp. ...{ucbvax,amd,ihnp4,cbosgd,decwrl,fortune}!dual!mats