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To: Yuval Levy <freebsd-current@sfina.com>
References: <JDEKJNLCGHFCNEBPGLHBMENHFDAA.freebsd-current@sfina.com>
From: des@des.no (=?iso-8859-1?q?Dag-Erling_Sm=F8rgrav?=)
Date: Tue, 09 Nov 2004 09:58:30 +0100
In-Reply-To: <JDEKJNLCGHFCNEBPGLHBMENHFDAA.freebsd-current@sfina.com> (Yuval
 Levy's message of "Tue, 09 Nov 2004 00:36:40 -0500")
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cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org
cc: Andre Oppermann <andre@freebsd.org>
Subject: Re: FreeBSD 6.0 and onwards
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Yuval Levy <freebsd-current@sfina.com> writes:
> A currency converter function is part of a web based application plattfor=
m:
> converted_amount =3D conversion (original_amount, original_currency,
> converted_currency). Then we realized we might also need to format the
> conversion for display. Introduce a fourth argument, a bolean
> (format/non-format). The new function was converted_amount =3D conversion
> (original_amount, original_currency, converted_currency, format). By test=
ing
> if the fourth argument exists and defaulting to the original behaviour if=
 it
> does not we upgraded without breaking the applications.

You were using a language (Perl, PHP, Java, whatever) which allows you
to do that.  C does not (at least not easily).  We can and do provide
backward compatibility for the kernel-userland interface (system
calls), but we can't easily provide it for internal kernel APIs.

DES
--=20
Dag-Erling Sm=F8rgrav - des@des.no