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From: dg@wrs.UUCP (David Goodenough)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Writing readable code
Message-ID: <233@wrs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-Jul-87 15:24:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: wrs.233
Posted: Fri Jul 10 15:24:12 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 12-Jul-87 16:00:06 EDT
References: <1158@copper.TEK.COM> <6858@auspyr.UUCP> <17171@cca.CCA.COM> <1221@ius2.cs.cmu.edu> <228@amanue.UUCP>
Reply-To: dg@wrs.UUCP (David Goodenough)
Organization: Wind River Systems, Emeryville, CA
Lines: 30

In article <228@amanue.UUCP> jr@amanue.UUCP (Jim Rosenberg) writes:
>It's hard for me to fathom why the idea of assignment as an operator causes
>such consternation.  It's obviously due to the fact that most progammers
>learned some other language before they learned C (so did I for that matter)
>and you get caught in a rut where it becomes hard to escape the habit that
>assignment is a statement, and so must go on a line by itself.  Requiring
>assingments to be on a line by themselves is no more necessary to code
>clarity than adding dozens of useless temporary variables to arithmetic
>expressions because you feel you should never be faced with the sight of
>3 right parentheses in a row.

_WELL_SAID_!! I agree totally - I grew up (god forbid) on a mixture of
BASIC, FORTRAN, and ALGOL, and when I finally latched onto how much fun
I could have with imbedded assignments, I've never looked back since.
It _IS_ necessary to use a little caution, because they can be overdone

	a = (ptr = expr[i = 3])->foo;

kind of thing (!!), but when used in moderation I find them _VERY_ useful
from the point of readability.

For those of you that don't agree - I've got my asbestos suit and fire
extinguisher ready :-)
--
		dg@wrs.UUCP - David Goodenough

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