i find this very hard to believe. C, either ansi ro K&R (my personal 
preference) is _extremely_ flexible. what kind of thing can one not do in 
C that one can in gcc, and i dont mean things for which there would be 
five lines of C and just one bit of gccism shorthand for... i am 
convinced that _most_ of the gnu-isms , not just in gcc but in e.g. gnu 
make, are the result of people who dont take the time to learn how to do 
something with the tools as they are, and write something special-case to 
do it instead. i find that it is a phase most hackers in the larval phase 
go through, and most grow out of it. some, unfortunately, impose it on 
the rest of us by getting it into gnu stuff. 

On Thu, 20 Jun 2002, der Mouse wrote:

> >> However, ANSI C is so constrained and crippled a language that [...]
> > [...]  But when the basic C language support differs from compiler to
> > compiler, then the portability of C is undermined.
> 
> I don't think it does - as long as you write in "basic C", whatever
> that is, as far as I can tell it pretty much Just Works.  The problems
> arise when people write in gcc rather than C (ie, using some gccisms
> that aren't Cisms), either without realizing it or under the impression
> that it's actually C they're writing in.
> 
> >> A few filters can probably be written in pure ANSI C.  Maybe even
> >> something ed-like.
> > If the required libraries are written in ANSI C,
> 
> But I don't think they can be, not if you stick to the stuff that ANSI
> C promises will work.
> 
> > then I can write a GUI editor not just ed ...
> 
> Sure, given ANSI C plus an X API, or a SunWindows API, or a GL API, or
> whatever your favorite interface is, yes.  But the library behind that
> API is going to use calls that ANSI C doesn't promise anything about
> (if indeed it's written in anything Cish at all).
> 
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