Re: lynx-dev overuse of system-specific conditionals (was: cygwin patc

[vtailor]

>     * From: Klaus Weide <address@hidden>
>     * Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 13:10:14 -0500 (CDT)
>   
>On Mon, 1 May 2000, Doug Kaufman wrote:
>> How many other places in lynx have platform-specific code that was
>> introduced without full evaluation?
>
>Lots, is my impression.  The more specific it is, the more likely that
>it's wrong, that bugs won't be found (or not reported).
>
>I'm suspicious of all the *_EX code, including WIN_EX.  Small example,
>that doesn't involve any windows-specific function in an obvious way:
>in LYConvertToURL (LYUtils.c),
>
>   #ifdef WIN_EX   /* 1998/07/31 (Fri) 09:09:03 */
>                   HTUnEscape(temp2);      /* for LFN */
>   #endif
>
>This is clearly wrong, part of the string in temp2 gets HTUnEscape'd
>twice (easy to see if you look at the HTUnEscape(cp) a few lines above
>that, and then follow the cat and copy operations).  Yet someone thought
>that this, for some unexplained reason, is an improvement "for LFN".
>
>I'm quite sure it's wrong, yet someone explicitly wanted it, so I didn't
>bother to report it (the person who added the line is likely not reading
>the list anyway).
>
>I guess the deal with using WIN_EX is: You get some added Windows-specific
>functionality (for example, what's provided by the WIN_EX'd functions in
>LYUtils.c that call Windows API functions).  You also get a lynx that
>may work ok most of the time, but fail in unexpected and unexplainable
>ways when you do something slightly unusual (like, pass it filenames with
>certain characters, or invoke it from some directories).

Some of the WIN_EX stuff is really cute and totally unavailable under
Unix.  Maybe my endorsement of it will hasten its removal.

And, anyway, isn't the whole idea to get the Windows version to "fail in
unexpected and unexplainable ways", seeing that the Windows developers
don't really want lynx to succeed as a Windows browser, anyway?


;
; To UNSUBSCRIBE:  Send a mail message to address@hidden
;                  with "unsubscribe lynx-dev" (without the
;                  quotation marks) on a line by itself.
;