Hi, On Mon, 10 Jul 2006, Olivier Galibert wrote: > 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 - : send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html