Re: The portability sacred cow

From	Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.c
Subject	Re: The portability sacred cow
Date	2014-04-21 20:25 +1200
Message-ID	<brk2v4F43uvU7@mid.individual.net> (permalink)
References	<lj1db3$ieu$1@speranza.aioe.org> <muqe2b-9pk.ln1@wilbur.25thandClement.com>

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william@wilbur.25thandClement.com wrote:
> jacob navia <jacob@spamsink.net> wrote:
>>
>> In my opinion, portability comes AFTER STABILITY and USABILITY, well
>> after those.
>
> In that case perhaps you should only use OpenBSD. They have nice features
> like an async-signal-safe snprintf, whereas Linux snprintf uses heap memory
> for the simplest formatting (which means you can't depend on it to never
> fail, even when you know it shouldn't, which is why glibc's recommendation
> to use snprintf instead of strlcpy is idiotic). And Windows _snprintf is
> just a horror because it has all the wrong semantics.

Or use Solaris/Illumos which has the same Async-Signal-Safe guarantee.

> OpenBSD puts a lot of effort into the small stuff, something that very few
> other platforms bother with. And yet, nobody is advocating only targetting
> OpenBSD. Linux and Windows are horrible targets if your primary concern is
> security, because those platforms emphasize backwaard compatability and
> performance more than OpenBSD.

Backwards compatibility and Linux in the same sentence, you jest??  A 
compiler writer told me porting their compilers between kernel revisions 
was almost as bad as porting between distributions.

> For example, OpenBSD just recently changed
> time_t to 64-bits on all platforms, including 32-bits platforms. That would
> be unthinkable on Windows or Linux.

I bet that broke a few things along the way.

-- 
Ian Collins

Thread

The portability sacred cow jacob navia <jacob@spamsink.net> - 2014-04-20 23:14 +0200
  Re: The portability sacred cow jacob navia <jacob@spamsink.net> - 2014-04-20 23:34 +0200
    Re: The portability sacred cow Geoff <geoff@invalid.invalid> - 2014-04-20 21:20 -0700
      Re: The portability sacred cow gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2014-04-21 04:35 +0000
      Re: The portability sacred cow Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2014-04-21 05:10 +0000
        Re: The portability sacred cow gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2014-04-21 05:31 +0000
        Re: The portability sacred cow <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2014-04-20 23:50 -0700
  Re: The portability sacred cow jacob navia <jacob@spamsink.net> - 2014-04-20 23:39 +0200
  Re: The portability sacred cow <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2014-04-20 23:37 -0700
    Re: The portability sacred cow Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2014-04-21 20:25 +1200
  Re: The portability sacred cow glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2014-04-21 07:10 +0000
  Re: The portability sacred cow Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2014-04-21 20:32 +1200
  Re: The portability sacred cow David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2014-04-21 16:46 +0200
    Re: The portability sacred cow <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2014-04-21 10:04 -0700
      Re: The portability sacred cow David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2014-04-21 21:02 +0200
  Re: The portability sacred cow Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2014-04-22 02:52 -0700
    Re: The portability sacred cow Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2014-04-22 23:18 +1200
      Re: The portability sacred cow gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2014-04-22 11:49 +0000
    Re: The portability sacred cow jacob navia <jacob@spamsink.net> - 2014-04-22 14:48 +0200
    Re: The portability sacred cow Richard <rgrdev_@gmail.com> - 2014-04-22 14:58 +0100
      Re: The portability sacred cow Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2014-04-22 07:37 -0700
    Re: The portability sacred cow luser droog <luser.droog@gmail.com> - 2014-04-22 21:52 -0700
  Re: The portability sacred cow Johannes Bauer <dfnsonfsduifb@gmx.de> - 2014-04-22 16:58 +0200
    Re: The portability sacred cow jacob navia <jacob@spamsink.net> - 2014-04-22 17:24 +0200
      Re: The portability sacred cow jacob navia <jacob@spamsink.net> - 2014-04-22 17:25 +0200
    Re: The portability sacred cow Gareth Owen <gwowen@gmail.com> - 2014-04-22 19:11 +0100
  Re: The portability sacred cow jacob navia <jacob@spamsink.net> - 2014-04-22 21:59 +0200
    Re: The portability sacred cow Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2014-04-22 14:02 -0700
      Re: The portability sacred cow jacob navia <jacob@spamsink.net> - 2014-04-23 01:04 +0200
        Re: The portability sacred cow <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2014-04-22 17:52 -0700
          Re: The portability sacred cow <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2014-04-22 19:15 -0700
      Re: The portability sacred cow jacob navia <jacob@spamsink.net> - 2014-04-23 01:10 +0200
      Re: The portability sacred cow Thomas Jahns <jahns@idontlikespam.dkrz.de> - 2014-04-23 09:53 +0200
        Re: The portability sacred cow gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2014-04-25 02:21 +0000
          Re: The portability sacred cow JohnF <john@please.see.sig.for.email.com> - 2014-04-25 06:36 +0000
            Re: The portability sacred cow Richard <rgrdev_@gmail.com> - 2014-04-25 14:02 +0200
            Re: The portability sacred cow gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2014-04-25 18:17 +0000
              Re: The portability sacred cow Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2014-04-25 18:27 +0000
                Re: The portability sacred cow Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2014-04-25 21:57 -0700
                Re: The portability sacred cow Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org> - 2014-04-26 00:02 -0500
                Re: The portability sacred cow Richard <rgrdev_@gmail.com> - 2014-04-26 11:35 +0200
                Re: The portability sacred cow JohnF <john@please.see.sig.for.email.com> - 2014-04-26 06:04 +0000
              Re: The portability sacred cow jacob navia <jacob@spamsink.net> - 2014-04-25 23:08 +0200
                Re: The portability sacred cow glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2014-04-25 21:52 +0000
          Re: The portability sacred cow Thomas Jahns <jahns@idontlikespam.dkrz.de> - 2014-04-25 11:27 +0200
            Re: The portability sacred cow Richard <rgrdev_@gmail.com> - 2014-04-25 14:03 +0200
              Re: The portability sacred cow gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2014-04-25 18:18 +0000
              Re: The portability sacred cow "Bill Cunningham" <nospam@nspam.invalid> - 2014-04-26 20:04 -0400
            Re: The portability sacred cow Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2014-04-25 06:05 -0700
              Re: The portability sacred cow Thomas Jahns <jahns@idontlikespam.dkrz.de> - 2014-04-25 17:43 +0200
                Re: The portability sacred cow Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2014-04-25 10:48 -0700

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