Re: [Mingw-users] glibc searching and sorting

[Keith M. <kei...@us...>]

On Friday 15 June 2007 20:19, Danny Smith wrote:

Sigh.  You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but here we must=20
agree to disagree.  I've seen all these stale old arguments before, and=20
with respect, not one of them bears scrutiny.

> > But why uglify the names? =A0
>
> Because some people want ANSI standard. =A0

And we satisfy that by providing the core set of functions, each=20
behaving *exactly* as specified, as required by whichever version of=20
the ANSI Standard for which we wish to claim conformance.  That alone=20
is a necessary and sufficient condition of conformance.  If we choose=20
to provide additional functions, however we choose to name them, they=20
have no bearing whatsoever on ANSI conformance.

> > Just because Microsnot do it, doesn't mean we
> > have to follow suit. =A0Better IMO to keep the same names as
> > are used in
> > glibc; uglification serves only to unnecessarily increase the
> > porting burden,
>
> It avoid polluting the namespace with non-standard symbols

Huh?  What namespace?  The functions in question would present a C=20
interface, and formally, there is no such thing as a namespace in C, so=20
how can it possibly be polluted?  If you mean an ANSI pseudo-namespace,=20
which of course is an arbitrary and fictitious entity, then all symbols=20
which are not defined as required by the ANSI standard "pollute" that=20
pseudo-namespace; this is equally true, however the extra symbols are=20
named.  Whether uglified or not, the extent of the "pollution" is=20
identical, for each symbol name.

> > in deference to an irrelevant Microsnot convention, (unless
> > there is a naming conflict to resolve).
>
> Actually, MS is doing the right thing here.

Actually, MS is doing nothing more than adopting a convention; there is=20
nothing wrong in that, but it is entirely arbitrary, and therefore does=20
not qualify as being exclusively "right".  POSIX defines many functions=20
which are not required by ANSI, yet these do not have uglified names. =20
Is the POSIX Standards Committee "wrong" to *not* adopt the MS=20
uglification convention?  I think not!

Indeed, of the tsearch, tfind, tdelete, twalk, tdestroy functions under=20
discussion here, all but tdelete are defined by POSIX, with *exactly*=20
those simple names.  None of these functions is provided by any MS API,=20
so, if you make them available, the MS purist will not be using them,=20
and therefore should not care how you name them.  However, the porter=20
of a POSIX application will expect to call them by name, *exactly* as=20
specified by POSIX, and will not thank you for uglifying those names;=20
you will both increase his work load, and force him to uglify his own,=20
otherwise portable code, just to accommodate an irrelevant convention=20
you've "borrowed" from Microsnot.  If you do insist on these uglified=20
names, then you'd better also define aliases representing them by their=20
POSIX standard names, in an appropriate header file; congratulations:=20
you just *doubled* the pseudo-namespace pollution you set out to avoid.

Regards,
Keith.