Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site bu-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!bu-cs!root From: root@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) Newsgroups: net.lang.c Subject: Re: more about programming style Message-ID: <489@bu-cs.UUCP> Date: Sat, 13-Jul-85 17:28:14 EDT Article-I.D.: bu-cs.489 Posted: Sat Jul 13 17:28:14 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 15-Jul-85 02:17:21 EDT References: <11457@brl-tgr.ARPA>, <293@timeinc.UUCP> Organization: Boston Univ Comp. Sci. Lines: 24 ARGGH, forget it, C is a tiny little easily learned programming language. If you can't be bothered to learn it then you shouldn't be bothered to either program in it or manage people who do...period. Now, consider a *real* case: PL/I, this language has thousands of features, many of them redundant, many of them obscure. Several linear shelf feet of *basic* documentation, you could spend years holding PL/I trivia contests (what does a leading '$' sign in a decimal constant type do?) My suggestion for *that* language was to enforce, by a compiler option, that only a locally approved subset of the language be allowed (say, a table that could be locally modified.) My point is: Yes, this has come up in other contexts before. C was designed by and large as a reaction to it, look at the C reference manual, about 25 pages long (the back of K&R.) And what about subroutines you 'dont understand', like scanf(), which no one understands (:-). Move over and let a pro do the work, your amateur status is showing. -Barry Shein, Boston University