Subject: Re: ANSI vs. K&R
To: Greg Hudson <ghudson@MIT.EDU>
From: David Holland <dholland@cs.toronto.edu>
List: tech-misc
Date: 03/12/1999 15:54:24
 > > I don't see any remaining benefit in keeping code "compatible" with
 > > old compilers.
 > 
 > I will note that one of the arguments in favor of retaining
 > compatibility with non-ANSI C compilers will pretty much never go away
 > with time: NetBSD likes to support "retrocomputing," and bootstrapping
 > a port on an old platform can be simpler if you can compile most of
 > the code with an old compiler.

The best long-term solution for this problem is to write a new backend
for gcc that emits K&R C, and treat the old compiler as the assembler
pass. Then you can use those archaic compilers if you have to (that
is, until the gcc port is ready) without kludging up the source.

-- 
   - David A. Holland             | 
     dholland@cs.utoronto.ca      |