Re: making directories and subdirectories

From: Richard Maine (nospam_at_see.signature)
Date: 01/27/04 

Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 17:48:44 -0800

TimC <tconnors@no.astro.spam.swin.accepted.edu.here.au> writes:

> And here we join threads on why I find fortran peculiar.
>
> In C, you are allowed to call any function. Just link the damn thing
> in.

No you aren't. This is a property of a particular class of operating
system that is written C-oriented. This is not a property of the
language in abstract at all. I have worked on operating systems where
it was just the opposite - that C was the only language that you could
not conveniently call OS library routines in - C was just too
different from everything else and too hard-wired in its expectation
of how things must be. (And I'm not counting OS's that didn't even
have C compilers)

You are simply observing that Unix is written around C, which is not
at all the same thing as saying that C is inherently just works when
calling any function.

P.S. On Windows, try to call a library function built with one C
compiler when you are using a different vendor's one. Lots of fun
often ensues (just like with Fortran). Or even the same vendor
in some cases for that matter (stdcall vs whatever the other one is). 

-- 
Richard Maine
email: my last name at domain
domain: sumertriangle dot net

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