On: How can C Programs be so Reliable?

[praptak]

"Worse still: a combination of a return code and a global error code."

That's not the worst that exists in C :-) Let me quote a dietlibc developer from http://www.koders.com/c/fid1639C203A2255EB1FA11DC6A68D74FEB2...

    /* Oh boy, this interface sucks so badly, there are no  words for it.
    * Not one, not two, but _three_ error signalling methods!  (*h_errnop
    * nonzero?  return value nonzero?  *RESULT zero?)  The glibc goons
    * really outdid themselves with this one. */

[epo → praptak]

And a comment written by a 13-year old proves what exactly?