draft ANSI standard: needs your tomatoes

[Henry Spencer]

> ... The constants EXTERNAL_NAME_LENGTH (6), INCLUDE_FILES_NEST
> (4), and SOURCE_LINE_LENGTH (509) in particular seem to be very
> inadequate...

The EXTERNAL_NAME_LENGTH minimum is a consequence of the extreme political
undesirability of making it impossible to implement conforming compilers
on systems that have prehistoric object-module formats.  (Let us not get
into the war about the desirability of that again; this *is* the reason,
however inadequate it may seem to some.)  I consider INCLUDE_FILES_NEST
adequate -- multiply nested include files become unmanageable quickly --
but it is a bit low.  SOURCE_LINE_LENGTH is a bit curious, and the choice
of minimum value for it is truly bizarre.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry