Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!ima!minya!jc From: jc@minya.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: Summary Re: Brain-dead Unix tutor needs quick help (-1) Message-ID: <414@minya.UUCP> Date: Wed, 25-Nov-87 22:06:25 EST Article-I.D.: minya.414 Posted: Wed Nov 25 22:06:25 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 29-Nov-87 02:32:50 EST References: <387@cogen.UUCP> <6700@brl-smoke.ARPA> <391@cogen.UUCP> Organization: home Lines: 21 > The answer I will use in this case will be one of style. It is good practise > to ALWAYS bracket expressions in case they come back to bite you or you > happen to port through an old compiler. Always bracketing expressions > (it should become a habit) will save debugging time and the programmer > should not be concerned with special cases that are immune to the > specific effect (in case, being human, (s)he misses an important counter). When I was a novice C programmer, I frequently made the mistake of trying to use the precedence rules to save a few keystrokes of typing; after several long hours spent tracking down bugs that were corrected by a pair of parens, I learned my lesson. Since then, I've noticed that many experience C hackers routinely over-parenthesize their code. It's easier than debugging. One of the minor problems with C is that there are just too many operators for the memory of most mere humans. Also, some of the precedence rules are, while not exactly counter-intuitive, at least somewhat non-intuitive. I've tried to teach this lesson to quite a few up-and-coming C programmers since then. They never listen, of course. -- John Chambers <{adelie,ima,maynard,mit-eddie}!minya!{jc,root}> (617/484-6393)