Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!nbires!isis!aburt From: aburt@isis.UUCP (Andrew Burt) Newsgroups: news.admin,news.groups Subject: Re: Making binary groups obsolete (was Re:Are binary groups necessary?) Message-ID: <1888@isis.UUCP> Date: Sat, 25-Jul-87 23:03:30 EDT Article-I.D.: isis.1888 Posted: Sat Jul 25 23:03:30 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 26-Jul-87 06:35:46 EDT References: <266@brandx.rutgers.edu> <8225@utzoo.UUCP> <272@brandx.rutgers.edu> <153@hobbes.UUCP> <303@brandx.rutgers.edu> Reply-To: aburt@isis.UUCP (Andrew Burt) Organization: Math/CS, University of Denver Lines: 33 Xref: mnetor news.admin:728 news.groups:1287 Regarding your proposal to write a C compiler so sources and not binaries can be posted, here is a semi-cynical positive vote. I personally prefer sources, IF it's compilable by the compiler I happen to have. If not, I don't waste my time on it unless I see an urgent need: My time is valuable and, as I've said in a prior letter, limited. Writing a C compiler without the library that has grown around it, which by now has a mostly unchanging core of functions (stdio funcs, malloc, etc -- most of what was around at the time of K&R / v7 Unix) you will have wasted your time. Few peole except those with lots of time and patience will attempt to compile any code with your compiler knowing that it will leave multitudes of functions undefined in the linking phase. Writing the COMPILER is not sufficient to cause people to abandon binary postings -- your goal is for the sources posted to actually be runable after going through your free C language processor. And what about extra-language utilities such as make? That is widely becomming a commonly expected facility. Furthermore, saying you'll only implement K&R C (minus the addenda including such as enum's, and thus I presume assigning/passing/returning structures, etc.) is just to save you work. If you're volunteering, do it right. As for the draft ANSI standard, this will presumably become an accepted standard in the near future. Borland, Microsoft, et al., would not be so stupid as to put ANSI draft compatibility into their commericial products if they thought otherwise. Wake up. You can't have your cake [no binary postings] and eat it too [not write a full C language programming environment]. If you're going to do the work, don't do a half-assed job. -- Andrew Burt isis!aburt Fight Denver's pollution: Don't Breathe and Drive.