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RE: building gmp-3.1.1 on darwin...


From: David T. Ashley
Subject: RE: building gmp-3.1.1 on darwin...
Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 17:33:57 -0400

Dear Torbjörn,

Thank you for your humorous and friendly reply.  I understand and appreciate
it in good humor.

However, this and my earlier e-mail on the same topic are driving at a very
serious point.

The serious point is that the GMP MP library is technically outstanding but
does not meet universally accepted coding standards for the C programming
language.

The things which caught my eye immediately are:

a)The use of TAB characters, which is discouraged in over 1/2 of coding
standards.
b)The inconsistent naming conventions, which could lead to a name clash if
the source code is used in a larger project.
c)The lack of documentation in the code.  It is spotty.  In some places, it
is outstanding, but in other places it is lacking.
d)The sheer number of source files involved.
e)The awkward process for documentation enhancements.  For example, even if
I wanted to volunteer to clean up some of the missing comments, it would be
an awkward process.
f)The inconsistent trapping at the interfaces.  (As I ported the code, I had
to add a great number of assert() statements to trap suspicious things at
function interfaces.)

Now, in my case, I took a non-recommended approach to using the library--I
just moved it function-by-function into Visual C++, and of course I changed
things I did not care for along the way.  But it was a very painful process.

Please keep in mind that I think your collective work is outstanding.  The
GNU MP library is positively outstanding, no doubt about it.

But the issues I raised are not "humor" issues.  These are serious issues.

However, I can understand the other point of view (that I'm simply making
noise).  These things are always subjective.

Best regards, Dave.

-----Original Message-----
From: address@hidden [mailto:address@hidden Behalf Of Torbjorn
Granlund
Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2001 5:21 PM
To: David T. Ashley
Subject: Re: building gmp-3.1.1 on darwin...


"David T. Ashley" <address@hidden> writes:

  Technically great, yes, absolutely.

  However, it won't be winning any awards at the C-language documentation
  ceremonies.

Kid, spare us the noise!

--
Torbjörn




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