[vbox-dev] reserved identifier violation

[Jens Schweikhardt]

Markus Elfring wrote:
...
> 
>> How much easier is it to use __foo and be done?
> 
> It may be convenient to ignore or exclude a few rules. But I have got doubts
> because software correctness might be affected.

You fail to understand the issue. Software correctness is more complex 
than strict adherence to ISO C letters. One aspect we value more is not 
invading the app name space. If you only realized that part of 
VirtualBox could be treated as part of the implementation, your issue 
immediately becomes a non-issue.

>> It appears you are arguing for not entering the implementation name space
>> for standard conformance's sake.
> 
> Yes - I stress this design aspect a bit.

For no benefit. Like I explained, it would even have potential 
detrimental effects (not counting testing effort on our side).

> Would any software developer like to be more strict with parts from the
> VirtualBox source code?

Sure, there's other opportunity for quality assurance, e.g removing the 
last few warnings, using lint, etc that's on our TODO list which is far 
more likely fixing real problems instead of perceived ones. To 
paraphrase a valuable engineering guideline: We're not fixing things 
that ain't broken.



Regards,

        Jens Schweikhardt