C strings suck!

[utzoo!decvax!genrad!linus!allegra!eagle!harpo!floyd!trb]

Relay-Version:version B 3/9/83; site harpo.UUCP
Message-ID:<1508 at floyd.UUCP>
Date:Wed, 11-May-83 15:55:50 EDT

Yes, the "C Standard I/O Library" is ubiquitous, but realize, young C
hackers, that stdio as it exists in 4.1bsd and System III was not the
first attempt at a C I/O system.  I don't know about the first
attempt, but I do know that the predecessor to stdio, the C "Portable
I/O library" was quite painful to use.

When the stdio library came out, all you had to do was search libS.a
(it was eventually incorporated into libc.a).  It was a whole lot
simpler than deciding what would be in Fortran 77.

My main point here is that the people who designed the stdio library
as it now stands learned from their mistakes, and weren't handcuffed
to their mistakes.

What a piece of work is C...

	Andy Tannenbaum   Bell Labs  Whippany, NJ   (201) 386-6491