Chris Craddock wrote:
<begin snippet>
If you're just writing plain old problem state code there's no advantage unless
you are also running in AR mode (supported by STORAGE, but not by any of the
forms of GETMAIN) However, if you're writing code that runs in the dark and
scary places then STORAGE is a way better deal.
</end snippet>
This is literally correct, but my own advice would be to avoid GETMAIN and
FREEMAIN entirely in new code and further to root it out of old code when it is
realistically feasible to do so, when that code needs to be changed anyway.
G & F have been functionally stabilized; support for new facilities is being
provided exclusively via STORAGE. Code that uses G & F will not be at all easy
to modify to use such new facilities---AR MODE is only one such---as needs for
them arise.
There is another, essentially pedagogic argument for converting to STORAGE.
Its syntax is cleaner and neater. There are fewer culs de sac. Those of us
who have used G & F for many years have, I think, been desensitized to their
baroque complexities; we know about them and we live with them; but I can see
no good reason to inflict such obsolescent lore on others.
John Gilmore Ashland, MA 01721-1817 USA
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