Re: Windows 9X compatibility

[Christoph <cschol2112@googlemail.com>]

On 3/28/2010 1:21 AM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2010 18:39:01 -0600
>> From: Christoph<cschol2112@googlemail.com>
>>
>> The need is in my opinion a growing pain in the rear-end to support this
>> backwards compatibility.
>>      
> This argument can only be persuasive if it comes from someone who
> personally experienced this pain, which could only be true if they are
> active maintainers of the MS-Windows port.
>    
You are right. I have not experienced this pain myself, but I have read 
the source. I see the function "is_windows_9x()" and where it is being 
used and other comments like "Visual Studio 6 cannot do this", "MSVC's 
stat doesnt support UNC and has other bugs" which led to code being 
added to eliminate these deficiencies and support old OSs like Win9x or 
old compilers like MSVC 6.

I am just wondering, if this really needs to be there and if anybody 
ever looks into replacing these functions with native Windows code in 
the latest version of their development tool chains. If it makes the 
code cleaner and less prone to breaking with added features or bugs, 
wouldn't that be worth it?

Also, I am not saying the guy looking into something that couldn't be 
myself. In fact, I guess the whole discussion was prompted by me trying 
to find a way to contribute. Maybe I should have picked a less 
controversial subject matter. ;)

Christoph