Re: <ctype.h> toLower()

From: ellie fant (pcrcutitout1000011_at_uko2.co.uk)
Date: 11/30/03 

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 05:34:47 -0000

"Martijn Lievaart" <m@remove.this.part.rtij.nl> wrote in message
news:pan.2003.11.30.01.59.45.509158@remove.this.part.rtij.nl...
> On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 00:09:42 +0000, ellie fant wrote:
>
> >
> > "Martijn Lievaart" <m@remove.this.part.rtij.nl> wrote in message
> > news:pan.2003.11.29.21.26.40.369046@remove.this.part.rtij.nl...
> >> On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 16:21:34 +0000, ellie fant wrote:
> >>
> >> >
> >> > "Martijn Lievaart" <m@remove.this.part.rtij.nl> wrote in message
> >> > news:pan.2003.11.28.20.57.00.162368@remove.this.part.rtij.nl...
> >> >> On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 08:09:51 +0000, ellie fant wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> > It is not common practise with proffesional programmers as anyone
> > with
> >> > any
> >> >> > brains knows that all software is designed with a specific target
> >> > platform
> >> >> > in mind. And the last thing on the mind of professional
programmers
> > is
> >> >> > whether or not their code is portable.
> >> >>
> >> >> Hello, real world calling.
> >> > LOL
> >>
> >> Glad you like it.
> >>
> >> >> > Why don't you get out from behind your computer now and then and
go
> > out
> >> >> > and look at the real world.
> >> >>
> >> >> Here's a professional programmer who has 20 years experience on
> > Windows,
> >> >> Unix and other platforms. You're telling me that I've been all wrong
> > all
> >> >> along? That I should have told my boss that we cannot port it to
> > another
> >> >> OS?
> >> > Sorry? If that 's what you think than yes I am telling you anything
you
> > want
> >> > to think now go away and think about that.
> >>
> >> Pardon, but could you repeat that in an english I can understand?
English
> >> is not my native language and I have servere difficulties parsing that
> >> sentence.
> >
> > It means:
> > Make what you want of what I say, and if you think I am saying your
wrong
> > about something then you go ahead and think that.
> > Now if you understand the above sentance go away and think about it.
>
> [ FWIW, could you please use a news reader that rewraps quotes correctly?
> I get a headache by reading the mess your newsreader makes of the quotes ]
>
> So, what you say is correct and real world, and what I say is of no
> conceqence?
No I am not saying that at all.
What you say is important but this doesn't mean your way is the correct way.
>
> >> >> I designed Internet voting software.
> >> > And I designed internet vibrating software.
> >>
> >> Sure. Any chance of that being an official goverment pilot? Currently
> >> in the process of evaluation and most likely becoming the official
> >> Internet voting platform of the Netherlands? (No I did not write that
> >> alone. It is a big and complex system. I wrote small but important
> >> parts of it).
> >
> > Whatever you have acheived in your past doesn't mean whatever you say is
> > correct ,
> > What are you trying to say? You are great and everything you say is
> > correct?
>
> No, just that your reference to "real world programmers" doesn't ring a
> bell with me. I konow several real world programmers, even if you discount
> me. People who have written real world programs. Real programs used daily
> by several million people over the world. Now you are telling me and
> several recognized authoritees on C and C++ we got it all wrong? Pelease,
> get real.
>
> > Good for you if you have done good things in your past but what exactly
> > are you argueing about now?
>
> That you are wrong. I don't feel one way or the other about that, but you
> are wrong none the less. Why not admit it? WHATS YOUR PROBLEM?

What am I wrong about? Do you even know what your arguing about here?
>
> >> Contrary to what you seem to assume, there are a lot of professional
> >> programmers here that have lots of real world experience. I am one of
> >> them and I'm telling you that portability is sometimes important,
> >> sometimes not. The trick is knowing when it is and when not. Something
> >> you haven't shown yet.
> >
> > Well it seems to be coming out in the open now that portability is
> > SOMETIMES important but this is a different thing from saying that code
> > is wrong because it is non-portable.
> > And portability is in most cases a very low priority as in most cases
> > you will code with a specific platform in mind.
>
> Wrong. 20 years of experience tells me your plain wrong here. It is
> important to know when software should or should not be portable, but in
> the past 10 years I only wrote some specific platform specific software.
> Mainly involving DCOM or Linux. Software that was only designed to run on
> one platform becuase it was specific to that platform. All other software
> I worte had to be portable, in some way or another. Even if it hadn't,
> there is no excuse for writing non portable software.

But what is your idea of portable software? source code?
Source code ain't software so if after 20 years of experience you don't even
know what software means there is something wrong.

>
> I found out the hard way. Writing software targetted at Borland 3.1. Later
> at MSVC 5.0. Newer versions of those compilers didn't accept my code
> anymore. Just using a newer version of the compiler took months of porting
> time. Sorry, but your viewpoint is the one I had 10 years ago, it didn't
> work for me then, I'm trying to save you that now.

Back in them days there were no such thing as standards ( well not that
anyone recognized ).
The world is different now we simply code according to standards and we
don't worry about future compilers coming out that don't support our code.
Perhaps old habits die hard but get used to the new world.

> >> As an example of platform specific software, I worked on a smartcard
> >> logon for Windows NT, currently used worldwide by the dutch goverment.
> >> Now that was platform specific. But it could (and probably is by now,
> >> others have taken over) be ported very easily to other systems by
> >> separating the platform specific and non-platform specific parts.
> >
> > And did you leave well documented object-code-libraries behind? Or did
> > they have to search through tons of windows NT source code and hack out
> > pieces that they could copy and paste into their applications? If you
> > made object-code-libraries they would simply call the relevant portable
> > functions and link in the library.
>
> No, this was all build on portable libraries, only the NT logon part of it
> was system specific (which tells us the people (not me) implementing those
> libraries did their job well). But that is not object libraries. Object
> libraries are system specific. A fact you can find out for yourself if you
> are just willing to try. I run several systems here and believe me, an
> object file for one system will not link on another system. Heck, I found
> out the hard way recently, when trying to link P4 specific objects on a
> P1 (Yep, that was a /stupid/ error). Tonight I installed two Alpha
> systems, and just for the fun of it (and to prove you wrong) I tried to
> link objects from an i386 on an Alpha. No Go. Try it yourself, it does not
> work that way. Object files /are/ sytem specific. As any compiler 101
> course will tell you.
LOL
What happened? What kind of error did you get?
I'm not too sure about how the opcodes on an alpha differ to the intels.
Once I get an alpha machine I will be trying it out.
You weren't trying to link a COFF file with an OMF linker were you?

Anyway this isn't the kind of portability I was meaning I meant that the
programmers can simply link into the purpose built library, for whatever
platform it was built, and they do not have to worry about the
implementation. This is better than hacking through hoards of source code
and getting invloved in the implemented for if they do this they'd be aswell
writing the function from scratch.

Note: Object code libraries are definately not platform specific you must be
doing something wrong if you create an object library on one intel machine
it should work on another intel machine at least.
Were you setting the correct linker options for the machine?

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