6 char externs and the ANSI standard

[Henry Spencer]

> ... and bring all of the out-of-date loaders into the
> '80s.  Writing compiler-assemblers is no longer the chore it used to be.
> Loader technology should also be brought up to date.

If you've been reading the earlier discussions, you know that the problem
is compatibility, not the difficulty of rewriting the loaders.  Vendors are
generally stuck with being backward compatible with all previous mistakes
forever.  If you disagree, please prove it by convincing at least one
major manufacturer (IBM would be a good choice) to abandon compatibility.
Please do this *before* flaming about how easy it is.
-- 
"Ancient principle of hacking:  he who complains, gets to fix it."

				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry