"Numerical Recipes in C" is nonport

[Henry Spencer]

In article <16711 at ism780c.isc.com> marv at ism780.UUCP (Marvin Rubenstein) writes:
>>The proposed ANS for C does NOT repeat NOT prohibit implementations
>>from supporting more than 6 monocase characters of significance in
>>external identifiers.
>Absolutly true.  But it does prevent me form *using* external identifiers
>with more than 6 monocase characters if I want to be certain that my programs
>will be accepted by *all* conforming C compililation systems.

No, not quite right.  For one thing, the identifiers can be longer than
6 characters, they just can't *rely* on being longer, i.e. they must be
distinct in the first six.  And second, it is not ANSI which is causing
this, it is the deficiencies of existing computer systems.  Anyone who
wants to be certain about portability has had to observe this restriction
all along.  Moreover, it is not within ANSI's powers to cure that, since
the systems that have the 6-character limit are the ones that can't change
easily anyway.

Encore une fois:  standards committees are in the business of recognizing
reality, not trying to change it just because the new version would be nicer.
-- 
The meek can have the Earth;    |    Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
the rest of us have other plans.|uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry at zoo.toronto.edu