Lint vs. ANSI C (was Re: Unix/386 lint -- how good?)

[J.T. Conklin]

In article <152 at stephsf.UUCP> wengland at stephsf.UUCP (Bill England) writes:
>  Sadly the lint on SCO Unix does not recognize prototypes.  However, if
>  you are going to spend the money on a 'decent lint' you could go for
>  a full blown ansi standard c compiler like Metawear's.

I have gone for an ansi c compiler with gcc, but will still be purchasing
a ``decent lint'' in the very near future.  I consider function prototypes,
especially when combined with gcc's -Wall option, to be a good thing; but
there still are things that lint can that prototypes cannot.

>  I'll bet that if SCO used the MW compiler that their system preformance
>  would improve. ( Goes also for Interactive and Esix. )

I have long advocated that the i386 UNIX vendors could do no worse if
they followed NeXT's lead and distributed gcc as their stock C comp-
ilers.  

Compilers are complicated beasts --- a lot of skill is necessary to
maintain one properly.  I think the i386 vendors have shown that they
are not up to the task.  If you can't do a job well by yourself, it
makes sense to get someone else to do it for you.

If they left compiler development to the FSF, they could spend their
time cleaning up the header files and system libraries.  This task 
doesn't take nearly the expertise, but would be greatly appreciated
by developers.

	--jtc


-- 
J.T. Conklin	UniFax Communications Inc.
		...!{uunet,ubc-cs}!van-bc!jtc, jtc at wimsey.bc.ca