From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Delivered-To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by yquem.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id D835CBC84 for ; Wed, 30 Mar 2005 17:11:09 +0200 (CEST) Received: from pauillac.inria.fr (pauillac.inria.fr [128.93.11.35]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id j2UFB9Sj031309 for ; Wed, 30 Mar 2005 17:11:09 +0200 Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id RAA01266 for ; Wed, 30 Mar 2005 17:11:08 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from cgpsrv2.cis.mcmaster.ca (cgpsrv2.CIS.McMaster.CA [130.113.64.62]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id j2UFB8AO031298 for ; Wed, 30 Mar 2005 17:11:08 +0200 Received: from [24.43.193.126] (account carette@univmail.cis.mcmaster.ca) by cgpsrv2.cis.mcmaster.ca (CommuniGate Pro WebUser 4.1.8) with HTTP id 87465756; Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:11:06 -0500 From: "Jacques Carette" Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Pervasives.compare output type To: Alex Baretta , Ocaml X-Mailer: CommuniGate Pro WebUser Interface v.4.1.8 Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:11:06 -0500 Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <424ABB87.1020203@barettadeit.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Miltered: at concorde with ID 424AC18D.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Miltered: at concorde with ID 424AC18C.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Spam: no; 0.00; caml-list:01 pervasives:01 baretta:01 oses:01 compilers:01 ...:98 wrote:01 wrote:01 jacques:01 jacques:01 mcmaster:02 output:02 bugs:03 alex:03 alex:03 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.2 (2004-11-16) on yquem.inria.fr X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=5.0 tests=none autolearn=disabled version=3.0.2 X-Spam-Level: Alex Baretta wrote: > Xavier Leroy wrote: > > It's a historical error. [...] > > Whether fixing such historical errors engenders more benefits than trouble is a very interesting philosophical > question. There are some conclusions on the topic of 'historical errors' that seem to hold: - a software system is 'mature' if 'historical errors' cannot be fixed because of the overwhelming weight of backwards compatibility [ie progress is definitely hampered by inertia]. - this inertia is not nearly as bad as a lot of people fear (people go upgrade their OSes, compilers, etc even though this is sometimes a fair bit of work). K&R C code bases did get migrated to ANSI C. It all depends on whether the installed base is viewed as more/less important as the future integrity of the software system as a whole. When I was in industry, I was in a position where I made the choice that future integrity was more important [and I did annoy the user base but improved the basic system a lot], and my successors made the opposite choice [which means that mostly do 'new' features and can't fix some well-known bugs that users have learned to work around]. Jacques