"Björn Lundin" <b.f.lundin@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:m713pl$l7a$1@dont-email.me...
> On 2014-12-19 00:01, Randy Brukardt wrote:
...
>> Right. And even on the systems where it worked, you're dependent that 
>> your
>> sockets library doesn't do any buffering (NC_Sockets can), doesn't have 
>> any
>> local data other than a sockets handle, and the like. A updated sockets
>> library might change that behavior.
>
> correct, but homebrew (yuck) also means full control. No buffering.

True enough. But I would expect approximately 1% of programmers would be 
using a homebrew sockets library, as that's a lot of work to maintain. If 
you're using some library from your compiler vendor or some other source, 
than change is always a potential problem. (Can be mitigated by staying with 
ancient versions of software, but that doesn't work in the long haul.)

                                          Randy.