[IRCServices Coding] Compiler issues

[Andrew Church]

>However, there is a whole section on the RedHat web site that explains what 
>the "issues" with this version of the compiler are and it makes quite 
>interesting reading. You might want to have a read yourself as I feel their 
>thinking makes complete sense to me and is the route we want to follow.

     Well, I have this to say in response:  RedHat admits themselves that
at least one release of gcc 2.96 has bugs, yet they continue to release
fixed versions of GCC as "2.96".  This makes tracking down bugs next to
impossible and is completely unacceptable; I will continue to treat any
version of GCC which identifies itself as "2.96" as buggy and unsupported.

     I will add a feature to configure to allow overriding the 2.96 check,
but if you experience any problems then you're on your own.

     Incidentally, Services is ANSI-compliant as far as I have been able to
tell, except possibly for restrictions on pointer aliasing, which I
personally consider a bug in the standard and have no intention of
correcting.  (Among many other things, aliasing makes lists much easier to
implement, and therefore less likely to have bugs.  The C99 "restrict"
keyword is a much better way to address the issue, and ordinary pointers
should have been left alone.)

>Can someone please try and explain to me where this leaves me?

     Looking for a better shell provider?

  --Andrew Church
    achurch at achurch.org
    http://achurch.org/