net.lang.c
uucp
as seen at utah-gr by Spencer Thomas
Articles 1770 - 1782 (113 articles)
Continuing discussions
Prototyping vs "bugging" vs "hacking".
Anecdotal report of a two week planning session in the Maine wilds
which produced totally unworking code (some people take vacations ...)
A recommendation for DeMarco's Structured Design.
Lots of discussion of this point, with some defending iterative,
"seat-of-the-pants" program design, and others planning ahead. One
factor seems to be for whom the software is written (self or another)
When writing for another, communication between programming and user
is important.
"Getting it right the first time" philosophy is hogwash.
They DO build houses the way we build programs (almost enough to make
you want to build your own house!)
8 and 9 as octal digits (tide is running strongly against).
More on long, unparsable sequences of +s and -s (b+++-++c).
Attack on and defenses of DeSmet C.
Methods of forming tokens (the "cat" macro in C). Candidates include:
1. #define cat(a,b) a/**/b
2. #define cat(a,b) a\
b
3. #define I(x) x
#define cat(a,b) I(a)b
Lots more on return expr vs return (expr). Branching off into syntax of
if (), while (), etc.
References to Brad Cox articles.
Another EQUEL question.
New discussions
What versions of PCC exist and are available? Send info to br...@godot.UUCP.
Disgusting hack from Tom Duff using a switch statement to jump into the
middle of an unwound loop ("Duff's Device").
Want help with C 370 (from AT&T). Contact David Burlingame or Bob Yagmoorian
Higher Order Software (617) 661-8900.
C compiler for IBM System 38? (mo@lbl-csam, seismo!mo)
Question on C compilers for PC and PC-XT. Do you need to run Lattice C
if you want Gosling's emacs? (trwrb!trwspp!aoki)
Can you use adjectives (unsigned, etc) on typedefed names?
Apparently so.
Long article on why people program in C. Intended to provide "intellectual
ammunition" to those who must justify the use of C to nonbelievers.
Summary: "C has only minor drawbacks compared to the other languages
considered [Fortran, Pascal, Ada, Cobol]."
Reference to "Comparing and Assessing Programming Languages -- Ada, C,
Pascal", edited by Feuer and Gehani, Prentice-Hall.
Do side effects occur inside sizeof? (e.g., sizeof(x++)). On most
compilers, they don't appear to. Should they?
Although the compiler DOES usually generate string space for a string
which you take sizeof.
What's your wishlist for the C compiler?
- True optimizing (dataflow analysis, etc.)
- a replacement for asm.sed (inline subroutines)