call for API review: new bitstring functions

Max Laier max at love2party.net
Sun Jan 4 22:30:18 PST 2004


On Monday 05 January 2004 06:09, Jeffrey Hsu wrote:
> 	- We'd have to name it something obscure like bit_rffs and bit_rfls
> 	  to preserve consistency with the existing naming convention.
> 	  I am reminded of Ken Thompson's reply at his Turing award acceptance
> 	  ceremony, when asked what he'd do differently about Unix, he replied
> 	  he'd spell "creat" with an "e".  Now that compilers and linkers
> 	  don't have a short limit on symbol names, naming new functions
> 	  after instructions from an obsolete computer architecture seems
> 	  like bad practice.

I liked the idea after all.

$grep -r "<bitstring.h>" | wc -l			# 134 matches
$grep -r "<bitstring.h>" | grep -v contrib/nvi | wc -l	#   7 matches

Indicates the bitstring.h isn't that famous at all. So maybe it's time to 
build a new, shinny bitstring API for the masses?! I guess there are quite a 
few local bitstring hacks out there, some of which are far from being well 
done, for sure.

I wonder if there is interest in a good, fast and usable bitstring API?

Comments, interest, feature-requests (apart from "range")?

-- 
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Max Laier				| ICQ #67774661
http://pf4freebsd.love2party.net/	| mlaier at EFnet #DragonFlyBSD






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