Wish for 2002 ...

[Felix von Leitner]

Thus spake Thomas Bushnell, BSG (tb@becket.net):
> > What, bcopy?  In growing use?
> No, strlcpy is in growing use.  Or can't you keep track of the
> argument well enough to know which function is which?

Let me quote your previous email:

| Why does libc have bcopy, memcpy, strncpy, and all the rest?  (Do you
| need a hint?)
| 
| But the point is:
| 
| 1) These functions exist in BSD libc, which used to be a sufficient
|    argument all by itself for why they should in glibc.

You are a little light on arguments and a little heavy on fanaticism,
Thomas.  I don't have the impression that this discussion with you is
very fruitful.

How can someone who doesn't understand the value of standardized APIs
even begin to argue about our implementation of a standardized API?

Why don't you start your own toy distribution?  There you can piss into
the village pond as much as you like.

> Now you've raised another, which is that somehow adding a function
> that many people already use will actually *decrease* portability.
> That's a new one, but it's also false.

See what adding the function to openssh did for the OpenBSD people.
A separate project had to be forked off that makes the sources portable.
This kind of software hell is something everyone else tries hard to
avoid.  That's why people use autoconf (heard of it?) and libtool (you
should try it!).

If your BSD software does not work on Linux, that's too bad, but
frankly, I don't care.  Software that is not portable should be
discarded.  Investing the time to make it more portable is a waste of
time for most projects.  If there would have been a choice for openssh,
people would have spent their time better.

Felix