Hard coded limits (was Re: LINK COUNT TABLE OVERFLOW)

[Martin Weitzel]

In article <1990Jul13.093105.4746 at sco.COM> larryp at zeus.UUCP (Larry Philps) writes:
>In article <OCM4N_9 at xds13.ferranti.com> peter at ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>>Is there any way of telling the root fsck to use a bigger link count
>>table? I'm tired of re-fsck-ing root after a crash.
[...]
>In a word: No.  Sorry.
>
[...]
>Easy if you have the source, the constant is MAXLNCNT
>(or something close), impossible if you don't have the source.

Why do so many programs use hard-coded limits at all?

Poor software design?

This is allways my first idea - my second idea is: The original author
might not have imagined that his or her software is delivered without
the source!

Sometimes I whish there were a way to put some pressure onto the
vendors of software to *force* them to deliver the source at least
partially, if any of these limitations come up. IMHO many many
working hours of the software engineering people are spent to find
work arounds for problems, which could be fixed in ten minutes or
less if - at least parts - of the source were available.
-- 
Martin Weitzel, email: martin at mwtech.UUCP, voice: 49-(0)6151-6 56 83