Home Original page

C's syntax

Alex Martelli aleaxit at yahoo.com
Wed Oct 25 05:31:17 EDT 2000 
"Erik Max Francis" <max at alcyone.com> wrote in message
news:39F65E15.E48A2144 at alcyone.com...
> Alex Martelli wrote:
>
> > No.  But the desperate need for warnings to ameliorate
> > some of the ill-effects of its tortured syntax, oh yes, it
> > most definitely _is_ one of C's weaknesses.
>
> There is no need for amelioration, because what you describe is a novice
> error, extremely rarely made by competent C programmers.  If you're so

You've stated this repeatedly, bringing no proof.  You have
not rebutted Koenig's opinion (in his book on "C Traps and
Pitfalls"), based on long experience using C and teaching it
to very competent programmers, that this just isn't so.  I
concur with Koenig, based on now-even-longer experience (his
book was written only about 10 years after C was invented).
Your bare, unsupported statement disagree.  Bring proof, or
shut up.

It's first of all a keyboard issue.  "stutter" and its reverse
_happen_.  Word processors' checkers warn you about repeated
words (e.g., "I was was happy") exactly because of that: they
ARE a common mistake, NOT rarely made by competent English
writers.


> worried about accidentally invoking that bit of trivial user error, then
> there's no need to use weird syntax (always putting the lvalue on the

"if(0==c)" is perfectly valid C syntax.  Now, you're calling this
syntax "weird".  So, will you agree that C syntax IS weird, or will
you keep contradicting yourself...?


> You are doing a fairly good job of misrepresenting what other people are
> saying.

Only in as much as "other people" (I can't see anybody else but
you...) assert contradictions.  It's easy, then, since from a
contradiction anything can be formally deduced.  You, for example,
claim that the C syntax "if(0==c)" is weird, and that any compiler
should be able to stop you from using the C syntax "if(c=0)", and
in the same breath keep claiming that this syntax (of which some
parts you call weird, others any compiler should be able to warn
against...) is "good".  This is quite clearly self-contradictory,
so it's fun to poke holes in the sum total of your contentions.

And flamewars have always been a good part of Usenet's fun...:-).


Alex
More information about the Python-list mailing list