Why text=binary mounts

[Gary R. Van Sickle]

Touche.  Let me clarify one point though: I had no intention to "admonish" 
anyone on this list or anybody else for that matter.  My post was simply an 
expression of the frustration I feel when simple, nagging problems go 
unsolved.

Here is one unrelated issue that I would be willing to spend some time on: 
 What is with all the K&R-style functions I see in the GNU C library?  Is 
there a reason for them not to be ANSI?  I can't believe there are a 
significant number of non-ANSI compilers still in use for development, 
maybe I'm wrong...

Gary R. Van Sickle (tiberius@braemarinc.com)
Electrical Design Engineer
Braemar Inc.
11481 Rupp Dr.
Burnsville, MN 55337
(612) 890-5135 Ext. 144
Fax: (612) 882-6550


-----Original Message-----
From:	Larry Hall (RFK Partners Inc) [SMTP:lhall@rfk.com]
Sent:	Friday, January 09, 1998 10:12 AM
To:	Gary R. Van Sickle; gnu-win32@cygnus.com
Subject:	RE: Why text=binary mounts

At 07:15 PM 1/8/98 -0600, Gary R. Van Sickle wrote:
>Let me address one sure-to-come-up complaint right now: the notion that it 
>would be too much work to 'fix' all the existing code.  How much time and
>effort is wasted on 'working around' the current situation?  Certainly 
more
>time than it would take to search-and-replace "w" with "wt", etc.

OK, you've come up with yet ANOTHER solution to this problem.  You wouldn't
be the first or probably the last.  So what are YOU going to do about it?
You raise the issue that the "fix" is generally "dismissed" as a result of
being too much "work".  From my perspective, the people with this view
probably agree with the notion that the "fix" must occur but they have 
found
work-arounds for their particular environments which are suitable and don't 
require much personal time investment.  Those people who have not and need
something else complain loudly but seem just as unwilling to take on the
herculean task.  For the moment, this is still largely a GNU-cenric project 
in spirit, without a large, committed development team behind it.  That 
said,
let's all acknowledge that while the users of this software may agree in
general that a particular course of action may be beneficial, unless people 
VOLUNTEER to undertake the task, changes are NOT going to happen quickly. 
 I
personally don't feel like I've invested any large amount of time to work-
around my text/binary issues, although I don't have many.  Certainly it
doesn't add up to anywhere near the time investment that would be necessary 
for me to go into even some of the source of these tools and make changes 
to
alleviate the difficulties.  Certainly one could argue that collectively 
all
users have spent some significant time working out these issues for 
themselves
and that maybe if that time was spent, collectively and in an organized
fashion, fixing the tools, we'd all benefit.  However, as I said, unless
someone organizes a volunteer effort, things aren't going to change 
quickly.
So, if someone wants to pick up and organize that effort, great.  MAYBE I'd
even be willing to help.  However, I'm not certain that having all sorts
of individuals posting to this list with general algorithms for fixing the
problem is useful, unless the one who posts actually might entertain the
thought of making the changes, organizing a group to do so, or maybe even
somehow sponsoring Cygnus to do it for them.  I'm not trying to downplay 
the
issue here and I certainly don't want to discourage people from discussing
issues and solutions.  But this particular issue comes up frequently and
always ends up being debated in a vacuum.  Admonishing others on this list 
or
the list in general for not fixing problems one finds intolerable in the
current software is unfair.  Its not productive.  Perhaps we can find a
different approach in regard to dealing with the text/binary issue and
others like it?  I can see some overall benefit from this.


Larry Hall                              lhall@rfk.com
RFK Partners, Inc.                      (781) 239-1053
8 Grove Street                          (781) 239-1655 - FAX
Wellesley, MA  02181

-
For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to
"gnu-win32-request@cygnus.com" with one line of text: "help".