The more interesting question

[Alex Rønne Petersen]

On 16-05-2012 18:12, Gor Gyolchanyan wrote:
>
> On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 7:22 PM, Steven Schveighoffer
> <schveiguy at yahoo.com <mailto:schveiguy at yahoo.com>> wrote:
>
>     On Wed, 16 May 2012 10:04:50 -0400, Gor Gyolchanyan
>     <gor.f.gyolchanyan at gmail.com <mailto:gor.f.gyolchanyan at gmail.com>>
>     wrote:
>
>         On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 5:25 PM, Steven Schveighoffer
>         <schveiguy at yahoo.com <mailto:schveiguy at yahoo.com>>wrote:
>
>
>
>             I don't see a "problem" anywhere.  The current system is
>             perfect for what
>             it needs to do.
>
>
>         Aside from the string problem the very existence of this debate
>         exposes a
>         fundamental flaw in the entire software engineering industry:
>         heavy usage
>         of ancient crap.
>         If some library is so damned hard to refresh, then something's
>         terribly
>         wrong with it. It's about damned time ancient libraries are
>         thrown away.
>
>
>     It's quite difficult to "throw out" OS libraries that you need ;)
>       printf is hardly the only C interface that requires
>     null-terminated strings.
>
>     D is a pragmatic language, not an ideological one.
>
>     -Steve
>
>
> Dear Steven and Alex. By no means, I say, that every ancient technology
> is to be thrown out at once. That's a technological suicide. What I
> mean, that knowing, that the technology is ancient, we should at least
> put some effort to gradually move away from it. If it needs to be done -
> it needs to be done. If it happens to be expensive to do - oh, well. I
> understand, that the human resources are limited, but hanging on ancient
> technology for _too_ long is a death wish for any new technology.
>
> --
> Bye,
> Gor Gyolchanyan.

Yes, but the thing is, throwing out null-terminated strings is not 
something you do gradually - you have to do it from one day to another. 
It's such a simple feature that you either have it or you don't.

-- 
Alex Rønne Petersen
alex at lycus.org
http://lycus.org