Re: Windows 9X compatibility

[Christoph <cschol2112@googlemail.com>]

On 3/28/2010 2:18 PM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> is_windows_9x is a 12-line function whose all calls but the very first
> one just return the value of a static variable.
>    
Right, I was just commenting on the mere existence of such function and 
its use to disable certain features, which in my mind seems kludgy for 
an OS that has been abandoned by its manufacturer, i.e. no more updates, 
bugfixes etc. But, I think your explanations in response to Oscars email 
made the intent of this clearer for me, i.e. what the status of support 
for legacy systems like Win9x is.

> The latter problem has nothing to do with old compilers: the Windows
> implementation of `stat' leaves a lot to be desired, for a
> Posix-minded program such as Emacs.  Which is why Emacs has its own
> version of `stat' that doesn't rely on the one supplied by Microsoft.
> The problem with `stat' exists on all versions of Windows, not just on
> Windows 9X.
>    
I just googled the UNC issue with Windows' stat and found that it 
actually supports UNC paths (in recent implementations at least), but 
there might be some other issues that I don't know about. Anyway, those 
were examples where comments led me to believe that there might be a 
cleaner solution for this nowadays, compared to what was available 15 
years ago or when the code was initially written.
> Maybe.  But it's hard to talk about this on this general level.
> Specific suggestions to remove old compatibility code are welcome.
>    
Yes, I will dig around some more and see what I come up with. Which 
should help me get familiar with the code.
> Your contributions, past and future, are welcome.  Thanks.
>    
Thank you.