OT: Language for the ages

[Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner]

It was thus said that the Great Vassilis Prevelakis once stated:
> 
> Paul Koning <pkoning at equallogic.com> wrote:
> > C is the obvious choice.  In either case, you have to be careful that
> > you don't wreck the portability by using non-portable I/O.
> 
> Er, how big is an int? a pointer?

  In ANSI C, a char is a least 8 bits, a short at least 16 bits and a long
at least 32 bits, with an int not shorter than a short, nor longer than a
long.  A pointer is big enough to hold an address to any type.

  Yes, there is some fluidity to how big certain quantities are, but that
has never been a problem for me (and I've written code that has successfully
been compiled under 16-bit DOS to 64-bit DEC Alpha running Linux); I've
never understood why so many programmers have such difficulty with the
concept.

  -spc (Or to answer your question:  big enough)