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From: vis!greg@UCSD.EDU
Subject: 3 Q's re: Ansification, Make, Alpha
To: postgres@postgres.berkeley.edu
Sender: pg_adm@postgres.berkeley.edu
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 93 00:46:47 -0800

Dear Postgres developers,

I don't mean to criticise, as I am very pleased to have Postgres to
play with, and perhaps these questions can be helpful:

Ansification:

	Why are you trying to do this in a way that will allow
	compilation by non-ANSI compilers?  Doesn't this compromise code
	quality and reduce the benefit that ANSI C can provide?  What
	platforms do you consider important that do not yet support an
	ANSI compiler?  Do any platforms of interest not at least have GCC?

Make:

	Why would you want to make Postgres dependent on
	Berkeley make? Has Berkeley make been ported to, and
	tested on, a wide variety of systems?  If not, why not
	use GNU make?

Alpha:

	If there are problems with DEC's cc for the Alpha, why
	not use GCC?  It may seem that I'm harping on using GNU
	tools and GCC, but I fail to see the virtue of ignoring
	the availability of a high quality compiler which runs on
	almost every current system and therefore reduces the
	platform idiosyncracies to a minimum.

_Greg


J. Greg Davidson	Institute for Software Research and Development
+1 (619) 452-8059       6231 Branting Street  San Diego, CA  92122  USA
 
vis!greg@nosc.mil					ucsd----+--vis
vis!greg@ucsd.edu		 			nosc----|

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