NetNews Offline 2/NetNews Offline Volume 2.iso/news/comp/std/c/547

Internet Message Format | 1996-08-06 | 3.4 KB

Path: hoho.quake.net!usenet
From: Dave Fenwick <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,comp.std.c
Subject: Re: Coding Standards are ignorant
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 19:03:16 -0800
Organization: Quasar Knowledge Systems, Inc.
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James Kanze US/ESC 60/3/141 #40763 wrote:
> It's even more confusing.  As I understand it: in the beginning, there
> was an ANSI standard.  This standard was adapted, or rather the
> technical content of this standard was adapted as an ISO standard.
> (The only changes ISO made were in the section numbers.)  Then ANSI
> threw out its standard, and replaced it with the exactly identical
> (except for the section numbers) ISO standard.

Actually, in the beginning, there was K&R.  And it was good.  Then everyone and their brother
started building extensions in their compilers, so some set of engineering beaurocrats decided it
would be a good idea to try and get a grip on it.  Thus the ISO and ANSI standards.  I agree that
ISO/ANSI standardization of the language was an inevitable (and good) thing.

However, this entire thread is about whether or not to use someone else's code in a place where
the imagination  could or would be used.  I'm wholehearted on DJ's side in this argument, having
grown up on his side of the tracks with C.  There was a point in time in which we didn't have
much as far as robust libraries went, and had to write a lot of our own code to compensate.  It's
a real slap in the face, for me, to see new C programmers come out of college and be better at
what I do than I am.  The only way I can compensate is that I have 12 years of it under my belt,
and know a LOT of ways to do things that they don't.

Pete, if you're reading this, I understand your points about ISO/ANSI usage.  But just remember
that there are a very large number of non-ISO/ANSI C compilers out there on platforms that GCC
simply won't run on.  I know of 3, all of which are Government computer systems, which require us
to maintain vast amounts of C code.  We cannot use an ISO/ANSI compiler in our environment,
simply because they are not available.  It pains me to see new, spiffy, utilities come out that
have very practical use, and then have to munge the code to make it work on my non-ISO/ANSI C
compiler.  You must also remember that many of these compilers/OSs still don't have all of the C
library functions that you take for granted.  If you've ever tried to write code on a NAS or a
really old PDP system, you'd know what I'm talking about.

In any case, I appreciate both sides of the thread here.  It's provided a good half hour of
entertainment for me and one of my co-workers.


--

_______________________________________________________________________
David J. Fenwick                                       [e-mail]
Knowledge Worker                                         [phone]
Quasar Knowledge Systems, Inc.