Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!zodiac!joyce!sri-unix!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.uucp (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Expression syntax in programming languages.
Keywords: C FORTRAN exponentiation
Message-ID: <159@quintus.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jul 88 21:00:20 GMT
References: <3136@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <19633@watmath.waterloo.edu> <5174@ihlpf.ATT.COM> <20520@beta.lanl.gov> <5239@ihlpf.ATT.COM>
Sender: news@quintus.UUCP
Reply-To: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Inc.
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In article <5239@ihlpf.ATT.COM> nevin1@ihlpf.UUCP (00704a-Liber,N.J.) writes:
>>If the presence of an exponentiation operator can be considered as an
>>'error' in Fortran, then an inherently inefficient part of C can be
>>considered 'broken'.
>
>Who said that the exponentiation operator is an error in FORTRAN?  But just
>because FORTRAN has it, that is no reason to believe that every other computer
>language should have it.  If it doesn't fit in well with the language
>paradigm, then it shouldn't be kludged in.

Guilty.  Although what I actually said was that the exponentiation operator
may be MISLEADING, not that its presence is an error.  What I had in mind is
that, although there is no _real_ difference between operators and functions
(even '+' may be a subroutine), operators _look_ cheaper, and my claim was
that because pow() in C _looks_ dearer than ** in Fortran (even though they
are essentially the same) this _might_ encourage people using C to stop and
think a bit, and that when you stop and think you often find that ** is not
appropriate after all.