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Date:      Tue, 26 Feb 2002 08:30:16 -0800
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>
To:        Alexey Dokuchaev <danfe@cytherea.weblab.nsu.ru>
Cc:        "Andrey A. Chernov" <ache@nagual.pp.ru>, Garrett Wollman <wollman@lcs.mit.edu>, Maxim Sobolev <sobomax@freebsd.org>, cvs-committers@freebsd.org, cvs-all@freebsd.org, hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: <sys/types.h> or not <sys/types.h>? [Was: cvs commit: src/include  grp.h]
Message-ID:  <3C7BB818.7A8D6BBC@mindspring.com>
References:  <200202251355.g1PDtmb35078@freefall.freebsd.org> <20020225140030.GD33818@nagual.pp.ru> <3C7A458F.427FFF8A@FreeBSD.org> <20020225142352.GA34378@nagual.pp.ru> <200202251828.g1PISL382207@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu> <20020226084959.GA43948@nagual.pp.ru> <20020226151423.A57693@cytherea.weblab.nsu.ru>

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Alexey Dokuchaev wrote:
> Is there any chance we will come anywhere close to POSIX 2001 at all?
> What about targeting to POSIX 1990/1996 *now* instead of aiming to the
> standard that would likely be rendered obsolete by the time we would
> reach it?  Especially, we still appear to not have an agreement on
> standard changes introduced between 1996 and 2001.

I agree.  Full compliance with an old standard is far
better than partial compliance with a new standard.

When Jeremy Allison and I did the final work to bring
the FreeBSD pthreads into Draft 4 compliance because
we needed a compliant system for ACAP, they then became
useful.  Then, later, as they drifted toward standards
compliance in the -release versions of FreeBSD as other
people worked on the code, they became useless again.
It was only after they had once again achieved compliance
with something that they were once again useful.

A programmer can only target a handful of standards with
software; targetting moving versions means complicating
their code into unreadability.

Personally, I don't object to a global switchover on a
major version release... from one standard to another.
Leaving the code in Limbo between the two at a release
is definitely not the answer, though.

-- Terry

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