Comparing fork to gets is perhaps a bit unfair to fork. I was being lazy when I tried to suggest a spectrum of deservedly rare api calls. :) It’s not broken like gets or outdated like sbrk, but it doesn’t compose well with other parts of the system and there are enough caveats that I recommend more use-case targeted alternatives wherever possible.

For example: http://www.evanjones.ca/fork-is-dangerous.html