Portability Issues

[Chris Torek]

In article <MCDANIEL.91Apr26114620 at dolphin.adi.com> mcdaniel at adi.com
(Tim McDaniel) writes:
>>... "Portable C" by Henry Rabinowitz and Chaim Schaap.  Prentice-Hall, 1990.
>
>... The authors have a basic understanding of C, but they miss,
>misrepresent, or state small inaccuracies about a lot of points.

(No comment here, since I have not read the book.)

>They also advocate practices that are unsafe in any language. ...
>The most glaring problem is section 9.10, "Porting other people's
>code".  [method mostly deleted: see parent article, or the book itself]
>
>   It is possible to post a large program written by others without
>   understanding how it works. ...
>
>How do you even START to criticize that?!?

The funny thing is that this technique often works.  It should, however,
be considered a last resort, to be used only when one is pressed for time.
Depending on the program, this `time-saving' method sometimes backfires
(one would do better to read and recode the program than debug it `inch
by inch', as it were).  If Rabinowitz and Schaap give it as `the' method,
this is indeed a disservice.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Lawrence Berkeley Lab CSE/EE (+1 415 486 5427)
Berkeley, CA		Domain:	torek at ee.lbl.gov