From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!CAD:tektronix!zehntel!zinfandel!mark Newsgroups: net.lang.c Title: Re: Re: order of evaluation parse date s - (nf) Article-I.D.: zehntel.848 Posted: Wed Mar 16 01:19:52 1983 Received: Wed Mar 23 01:49:53 1983 #R:houxj:-22000:zinfandel:14600004:000:1416 zinfandel!mark Mar 10 11:28:00 1983 Michael Wagner has a very good point: readability by humans. When I run across like that being discussed here I have to decide: 1. How does this code work on the machine for which the author wrote it? 2. How does it work on the machine(s) on which I intend to run it? 3. If they are different does it matter? 4. If it matters, is it a. necessary (eg, fix differences in the machines) b. a "feature" (ie, can be tolerated) c. a "bug" (ie, must be fixed) 5. Did the author consider any or all of (1)-(5)? 6. If so, do I think s/he was correct on all of them? 7. If not, am I missing something or is the author? 8. If the author didn't consider all of the points, or was wrong on some of them, how closely should I look at the rest of the code for other non-portable constructs? In other words, even if the code works probably on all existing and known machines and compilers I have to waste a lot of time on the code, even if it turns out to be ok. I don't care if the compiler can sort things out if people can't; such features should be used, even when portable, without a very compelling reason. Mark Wittenberg ...!decvax!sytek!zehntel!mark PS. I can't think of any compelling reasons for the examples mentioned here. PPS. I also don't like use of ADA overloading for similar reasons; please direct all flames to /dev/null, as I don't want to start ADA debates here.