Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!sundc!hadron!jsdy From: jsdy@hadron.UUCP (Joseph S. D. Yao) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: (unsigned)-1 Message-ID: <344@hadron.UUCP> Date: Mon, 29-Dec-86 19:34:33 EST Article-I.D.: hadron.344 Posted: Mon Dec 29 19:34:33 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 30-Dec-86 18:43:26 EST References: <1382@hoptoad.uucp> <8322@lll-crg.ARpA> Reply-To: jsdy@hadron.UUCP (Joseph S. D. Yao) Organization: Hadron, Inc., Fairfax, VA Lines: 36 Summary: Attempt to explicate In article <646@cartan.Berkeley.EDU> ballou@brahms.Berkeley.EDU (Kenneth R. Ballou) writes: >In article <800@nscpdc.NSC.COM> djg@nscpdc.NSC.COM (Derek J. Godfrey) writes: >>Enough! The C language conserns itself with the syntax and semantics >>of its programs, not its pragmatisms(these are the concerns of compiler >>writers and hackers :-) .) Those "pragmatisms" a r e the semantics, and legitimate concerns. Implementation details, of course, are implementation details; but the meaning (semantics) of the language does not fall into that category! Compiler writers may not interpret (except where the standard explicitly allows). Compiler hackers, alas, often do. >> this should dictate how to represent it. ( a >> collection of bits fields, a range a numbers (2^n -1 ) a >> combination of masks, or whatever.) > > Again, I do not understand your point. Could you please offer a >clarification? Ken, I thnk that djg is just trying to repeat again, the First Law of Software Engineering: "Say What you Mean." In other words, he is assuming that people might want to set a word to ones as an alias for, e.g., some bit fields, or "the highest number," or whatever; and that in those instances they should use the appropriate constant instead. And insofar as that goes, of course, he is absolutely right. Of course, sometimes (bit-map graphics?) you d o just want your ones. "A cigar is sometimes just a cigar." - S. Freud -- Joe Yao hadron!jsdy@seismo.{CSS.GOV,ARPA,UUCP} jsdy@hadron.COM (not yet domainised)