Re: [PATCH] Avoid C++ comments, use C comments instead

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Jul 10, 2006, 22:55 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.63.0607110049470.29667@wbgn013.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de>
In-Reply-To: <20060710202412.GA8189@dspnet.fr.eu.org>

Hi,

On Mon, 10 Jul 2006, Olivier Galibert wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

> On Mon, Jul 10, 2006 at 02:14:17PM -0500, Paul Serice wrote:
> > If you want to write portable code, you have to take into account
> > different operating systems _and_ different compilers.  Writing your
> > code for just a single compiler is almost as bad as writing your code
> > for just a single operating system.
> 
> Hmmm, that was not so much about gcc-specific code than which kind of
> C you want to code to, the one from 1973, the one from 1989 or the one
> from 1999?  I personally don't have much sympathy for the OS vendors
> giving you an older standard C compiler and selling you the up-to-date
> one.

Judging by what you say, one could get the impression you'd have not much sympathy for people being stuck with non-C99 compilers.

Just look at it: if the OS vendor just does not _care_, and you blame the vendor for not providing something newer, the vendor does not _care_ about your complaint either. But the user does.

However, there is a more important point to be made. If you are complying with an older standard, you get more users. More users = more bug testers.

And there were quite a few occasions where I found bugs by trying to run on a different platform, which was less forgiving than Linux. These are bugs you have a harder time to spot on Linux, _because_ Linux is so nice. But they will surface. And they will be a PITA to find.

Anyway, it is best practice for a reason to program portably. (Well, at least if you are not living in Redmont.)

Ciao, Dscho