1994.10.21 18:53 "Re: Problems catching write errors in tiff library (v3.3beta021)", by John Bradley

On another subject, there was some talk earlier about rewriting the tiff library in C++. Any progress on this? Want any help?

This is a REALLY bad idea in my opinion. It works fine now in C. What is wrong now that a C++ library will fix?

I have lot's of existing code to support that is all in C and uses the TIFF library. I do not want to be forced into a whole new set of tools on the eight different platforms I have to support.

If you want to write tools in C++ that layer on top of a C library, fine. If you want to write a C++ class library that provides an object oriented interface to the library, fine. But save me a lot of heartburn and leave the basic library in C.

Hear hear! For what it's worth, it'll be a cold day in hell before XV uses any C++ code, libraries, or what have you. Not because I have a religious objection to C++, but simply because:

1. there's no overriding reason to *do* it. Yes, perhaps it would be neat, and perhaps if one were to start from scratch today, you'd write in C++, but it's already in C, and it works, so why break it.
2. portability. *Everybody* has a C compiler (yeah, I know about Solaris...) and generally every computer installation has, or can find, someone who can understand and fix C programs that don't want to compile. This cannot be said for C++, not even a bit. Also, I'd say most folks out there do not have a C++ compiler. Maybe they could get g++, but then again, maybe they can't. A large number (possibly the majority) of the folks I deal with compile XV with the vendor-supplied C compiler, not gcc. Asking folks to try to install gcc, g++, libg++, and whatever else they might need (a *non-trivial* exercise, even if you know what you're doing), is an awful lot to ask, just to compile a file i/o library, (or even a marginally-spiffy image viewer :-).

--John Bradley