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- Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!charnel!rat!ucselx!crash!cwr
- From: cwr@crash.cts.com (Will Rose)
- Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
- Subject: Re: ACK ANSI Compiler
- Message-ID: <1993Jan05.005757.13952@crash>
- Date: 5 Jan 93 08:57:57 GMT
- References: <1993Jan3.115527.11032@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
- Organization: CTS Network Services (crash, ctsnet), El Cajon, CA
- Lines: 27
-
- Linus Torvalds (torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI) wrote:
- :
- : The only people I see using the new ANSI compiler extensively would be
- : people with old PC/XT's, and if they can put up with that kind of
- : hardware, thay should certainly be able to put up with an older release
- : of the compiler as well (*). It's not as if you could port many
- : standard unix programs to a 64+64kB machine anyway, so the lack of ANSI
- : shouldn't be that bad an experience: you'd just have to write your
- : programs using K&R.
-
- There are two problems with using K&R - compiling 1.6 kernel and sources,
- and debugging code without lint. The one advantage of ANSI C for my
- money is that prototyping catches a number of errors that only lint can
- otherwise reach, and there is no lint for Minix, and I don't have the
- time, interest or skill to write one. ANSI C does a number of things
- I don't want it to do, but prototyping is handy. It's also pretty
- uninispiring to hack eg. modem control into the tty code when you know
- a) its been done already for 1.6, and probably much better and b) no-one
- else will be interested in re-using your code, since they'll have 1.6
- anyway. My current best solution is to work out a cross-compile under
- MSDOS for the kernel and commands, use the 1.3 compiler for my own code,
- and lint the stuff on another Unix machine entirely. This will all take
- a lot of time that could better be spent in drinking, which displeases
- me further.
-
- Keep taking the tablets - Will
- cwr@crash.cts.com
-