[sane-devel] SANE 1.1.0 Release discussion

[Alessandro Zummo]

On Thu, 08 May 2008 22:07:40 +0200
Julien BLACHE <jb at jblache.org> wrote:

> >  proprietary unices can't use gcc or another C99 compiler?
> >  Which unix in particular?
> 
> Pretty much all of them ship compilers that do not implement C99 or do
> not implement all of it yet. Moreover, we're speaking of systems that
> often do not get updated for a variety of reasons, so you can't rely
> on a recent compiler being installed or even available.

 may we know the names of those unices and an estimate of the installed
 user base?


> In my experience it's actually pretty easy to make one of these
> compilers barf on what you'd consider "standard C code".

 It's not me that makes the standards.


> Moreover gcc is not always an option for various reasons, one of them
> being the support contract linked to the machine. Another one would be
> the total pain that is a gcc+binutils build.
> 
> >  I'm pretty tired of those proprietary closed source things that
> >  we don't even know of and that are preventing us to improve.
> 
> Next time you'll say that for the BSDs.

 the BSD are completely different things. they are open, they may have
 their own licenses, software and tweaks, but they are open, have
 an user base and you can talk to them. and they use gcc :)

 

> Portability can be seen as a burden, I see it as a mean to learn a few
> things along the way and make the code better. It also teaches you not
> to rely on things that make life easy for you as a programmer. That
> saved me already :)

 portability makes a lot of sense. constraining ourselves to things
 that are decades older does not.



-- 

 Best regards,

 Alessandro Zummo,
  Tower Technologies - Torino, Italy

  http://www.towertech.it