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[Don Y]

Kevin Handy wrote:
> Don Y wrote:
> 
>> Exactly.  But, moreso, it also decreases reliability.  How often
>> do we see the same "buffer overrun" bugs creeping into code?
>> Wasn't OO design, C++, "design by contract" supposed to BURY
>> all of those little problem issues in a way that would make
>> them go away FOREVER??  I.e. shouldn't classes take care of
>> the details of pushing/appending bytes to a buffer so the
>> developer doesn't have to *count* them??
> 
> Except that few are using C++, and many of those that do
> (i.e. kde) have decided that the STL classes are too bloated
> because of the boundry checks, and write their own, saving
> you an amazing 0.00001% on runtime with only 10% more
> memory.

My dig was intended at the MS folks.  :>  They like to write
books about how well they handle quality issues like this...
I guess they just don't READ them!

>> My favorite text editor (including emacs) is Brief (for DOS).
>> I take out version 1.1 and run it on a 400MHz machine and it
>> *flies*.  I can't even imagine what it would do on a 2GHz box!
>> Yet, it does everything I want, runs as a text console (though
>> uses "line graphics" for the frames of it's "windows"), etc.
> 
> It was probably written entirely in machine language,

Yup.  I think later versions were rewritten, though.
There was a noticeable slowdown moving up towards v3.1

> and with all the DOS limitations built in (8.3 file names,
> 640K, direct access to hardware, etc). Updating it to another
> CPU or operating system  would be a *lot* of work.

Perhaps.  No idea since the sources aren't available.

>> Shame Borland never rereleased it after they bought it
>> (or, better yet, open sourced it!)
>>
> Probably too much "licensed" extras in it, or too "ugly"
> to release the source for. Most likely they just don't want
> to be bothered about it.

I think it was just YABB*

*Yet Another Borland Blunder

>> Yup.  Like constantly telling me I misspelled something instead
>> of letting me ASK you if I've misspelled anything (or, compromise,
>> *remind* me to ask you...)
>
> Being genetically incapable of spelling anything the same way
> twice in a row, I like the auto-spellcheck feature.

Must make words like the personal pronoun 'I' particularly
interesting!  :>