In message <Pine.ULT.3.91.960308160206.26814B-100000@sockdev.uni-c.dk>,
	Erik Bertelsen writes:
>On Fri, 8 Mar 1996, Peter Galbavy wrote:
>
>> This is one of those areas where I "quietly" disagree with JTC (and
>> others etc...) and think that the ANSI environment brings such
>> benefits to the developer in terms of prototyping, type standards
>> etc that it should be considered a requirement for coding in C
>> nowadays. It is not (as some people see it) a lazy programmers safety
>> net.
>I wholly agree !!!
>
>Please look forward. Backwards compatibility with pre-ANSI/ISO C platforms
>is Ok, but only if you can actually think of such platforms today (also
>bearing in mind that the porting of gcc is a pre-requisite for porting
>NetBSD).

You all neglect the point that the NetBSD userland is not always run
under NetBSD.  Other operating systems can, and do, use it as well.

For instance, my RT runs with some NetBSD libraries.  Under AIX 2.2.1.
Although it has gcc, gcc can not compile shared libraries...  only
the stock compiler can, and it is nowhere near ANSI C.

Being as compatible with pre-ANSI C as possible is something which is
*nice* to do.  Being fascist about one's code level annoys people.

As well, changing the code level is an immensely pointless task, which
would take a lot of time that would be better spent on other things.

--
Jason Downs
downsj@teeny.org  --> teeny.org: Free Software for a Free Internet <--
http://www.teeny.org/

"Take away the right to say 'fuck' and you take away the right to say 'fuck
 the government.'"		-- Lenny Bruce (1923-1966)