Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: retiring gets(3)
Message-ID: <1988Nov29.203133.26313@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1988Nov8.054845.23998@utstat.uucp> <22402@watmath.waterloo.edu> <1988Nov27.005945.29173@utzoo.uucp> <8988@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 88 20:31:33 GMT

I won't do a point-by-point rebuttal of Doug's long posting, partly
because this is obviously a semi-religious issue.  I will content myself
with observing that saying "it's all just a matter of coding style"
ignores the fact that there are objective differences between coding
styles:  some *are* better than others.  Many people, notably including
those at a certain Bell Labs site of some historical significance, seem
to agree with Geoff and me that gets() is an error-prone and unnecessary
function whose use should be firmly discouraged.  This would not magically
solve all our problems, but it would eliminate one superfluous sharp edge
from widely-used software.
-- 
SunOSish, adj:  requiring      |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
32-bit bug numbers.            | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu