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From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: portability and standards
Message-ID: <6095@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 9-Jul-87 21:24:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.6095
Posted: Thu Jul  9 21:24:55 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 12-Jul-87 07:17:02 EDT
References: <2290@calmasd.GE.COM> <4715@columbia.UUCP> <107@snark.UUCP> <1103@killer.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) )
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 18

In article <1103@killer.UUCP> jfh@killer.UUCP (John Haugh) writes:
>What do you do with a simple status variable like errno that is
>modified by all of the system calls?

A botch.  Consider what happens in multi-threaded applications,
such a signal handler that has to do system calls.  Of course
there are ways around this misfeature, but they shouldn't have
been necessary.

Don't knock ADT or other structured software design methodologies
until you've learned to use them.  A lot of very smart people have
worked very hard over the past few decades to figure out how to
turn software construction into a solid engineering discipline
rather than a guild craft.  Much real progress has been made in
understanding the fundamental issues and in developing suitable
methodology, although as usual many practitioners remain ignorant
of theoretical developments (especially in the UNIX community,
which has more than its fair share of random hackers).