🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4ksfdr$bhh@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM> linden@positive.Sun.COM (Peter van der Linden) writes:

> Andrew Koenig <ark@research.att.com> wrote:
> > why aren't you agitating for a name-mangling standard in C?
> > Name mangling is a potential problem there too.

> It may be a potential problem, but name mangling isn't an actual problem in C.  
> Names either don't get mangled, or everyone mangles them the same trivial way.

That's actually not quite true.  For example, some C compilers put an
underscore at the beginning of external names, and others don't.  I imagine
there are other possibilities too.

> Name-mangling in C++ was a grotesque hack (like having the compiler
> implemented as a C-preprocessor).  It provided a compiler 4 months sooner,
> and set the language back five years.

Please justify this statement.  You might begin by explaining a different
way of accomplishing what name mangling does -- portably -- in 4 months
of effort or less.  Next you might try to find two C compilers that are
link-compatible in all but their use of external names.

> Let's try and face up to the deficiencies of C++.  Not say "well C might
> be just as bad".  When we admit the deficiencies of C++, we can start to
> look for something better.  No programming language is perfect, let's just
> try to make them monotonically better.

I completely agree with you.  But that is no excuse for inventing deficiencies
that do not exist.
-- 
				--Andrew Koenig
				  ark@research.att.com