[ILUG] EU Rejects Patent Software Law - For Now

[Brian Foster]

  | Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 12:32:11 +0000
  | From: Colm MacCarthaigh <colm at stdlib.net>
  | 
  | Yep, but I know C :) In C, if you don't explicitly set return
  | types, or argument types two things happen. Firstly int is
  | the default type [ of both functions and arguments ].

 1st pedantic quibble --- this "feature" (called “implicit int”)
 is deprecated in C99,

  | main() {  [...body elucidated...]  }

 2nd pedantic quibble --- that is not a valid (as in standard
 conformat) definition of main(), albeit it does work in most
 (all?) *ix systems.   from memory, the two valid forms are
 int main(void)  and  int main(int, char **)  and equivalents.
 and NO, it is not true that  foo()  and  foo(void)  mean the
 same thing; in C, they do not.  (b.t.w., the first form, foo(),
 is also deprecated.)  see K&R-II, where that first form, foo(),
 is called “old-style”.

 I have not read the patent in question, nor have I read this
 thread very closely.  but it did strike me that all(?) of the
 code posted so far seems to assume a location in memory has
 exactly one address.  i.e., the possibility of the memory
 being double-mapped (as one example, to two different virtual
 addresses in the same process) is not handled.

cheers!
	-blf-

 p.s.  someone is running a poll about having designed code for
      using SIMD features: Yes, I have.  but not for Intel-ish
      SIMD the poll is asking about.  but in fairness, nothing
      significant; just some test code for the RTOS to confirm
      applications which did use the SIMD facilities (some of
      which was semi-autonomous) would be correctly handled.
      hence this probably doesn't count....?   (we _did_ have
      an application, an MPEG decoder as it happens, that heavily
      used the SIMD facilities (much of it hand-written in
      assembler!), but I was not involved.)
-- 
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