P
Phred Phungus
Richard said:Mark wrote:
[re strcpy/strncpy]
Can I put a smiley now?
(In case it comes across wrongly, I am just lightening the mood)
It is actually quite difficult to express disagreement on Usenet (and,
it sometimes seems, in real life) without connotations of antagonism and
irritation - even when one's comments are not intended to express these
ideas, they are sometimes read that way anyway. I think you may have
over-interpreted Nick K's and my responses.
Not long ago (a few years, that's all), I had a long, long, long long
long debate with a guy in alt.comp.lang.learn.c-c++ about strncpy vs
strcpy. He was quite convinced that strcpy was unsafe, and that strncpy
was safe - at first. He argued well, so it was a good debate. It was an
even better debate because each of us was sceptical of the other's
position but nevertheless ready to try to understand it. And it was even
more betterer debate because, throughout, it was conducted with civility
and respect on both sides.
Incidentally... by the end of it, my opponent had changed his mind. And
that's the best kind of debate - one where the participants are
intellectually honest and are prepared to change their mind if necessary.
But the most important thing is that, at the end of the debate, we were
still friends. It can happen, and it does happen.
It motivates the rather odd truth that conflict can produce two winners.
I used to think that it was "competition" that did this. Now that
I've witnessed a couple of decades of "competition" here in the states,
I've come to regard it with disdain.