Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: encapsulating directory operations
Date: Thu, 29 May 2025 22:09:54 +0100
Organization: Fix this later
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On 29/05/2025 21:45, Keith Thompson wrote:
> Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> writes:
>> On 29/05/2025 20:24, David Brown wrote:
> [...]
>>> That's one of the reasons I like C99 and C11, and look forward to
>>> C23. Once implemented, they don't change either.
>>> I agree with all your are arguments on this,
>>
>> So far so good. :-)
>>
>>> except for one - I can't understand why you think C90 is different
>>> from later C standards in this regard.
>>
>> I realise that my reply is going to sound glib, but I can't help that.
>>
>> I *don't* think C90 is different. I think C90 is exactly the
>> same. It's the later standards that are different. Different from C90.
> 
> I'd like to understand the point you're trying to make.

I'll do what I can to help out; I'm really not trying to be obscure.

> Being different is a transitive relationship.  C90 is different
> "from later C standards".  You say that C90 is "exactly the same"
> -- as what?  As itself?

Yes. And nothing else has that quality of being C90.

> C99 is also exactly the same as itself.

Yes, but it's different from C99.

> If the difference is that you personally like C90 and dislike C99
> and later editions, that's fine.  De gustibus non est disputandem
> (never argue with a guy named Gus).

Look, Gus, if that's what you want to call yourself...well, okay, 
I can't in all honesty deny that de gustibus is part of it, but 
it's more to do with bit rot.

Software houses need C90 for the same reason the government needs 
IBM 1311s (unless they've finished migrating off them now), 
cassette players, WW2 crypto keys, and the boot passwords for 
those early 1990s PCs lurking in the cellar.

I shudder to think how much C90 code is out there, but it has to 
be /at least/ in the region of 10^9 LOC, much of it in the 
military arena, medical applications, and particularly the world 
of comms. Letting C90 compilers fall off the radar (e.g. by 
society forgetting how to program in it) really could be a 
stupendously bad idea, for all the reasons that people overlook 
when they shrug and say `I expect it'll all turn out fine'.

-- 
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
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