What should be added to C

[Donald L. Nash]

In article <1462 at mmintl.UUCP>, franka at mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes:
> 
> o := as a synonym for =.  Compilers could have an option to permit := only.
> 

Why?  "Since assignment is about twice as frequent as equality testing
in typical C programs, it's appropriate that the operator be half as long."
K&R, p. 17.  Allowing := as a synonym is OK, if you prefer that operator,
but why would you want to make it manditory?

> 
> o Any sort of multi-level break statement.  There is no syntacticly clean
> way of adding this to C.
> 

How about using goto?  Some people may think that goto sucks wind, but it
is a perfectly legitimate statement which can get you out of trouble, if
properly used.

> I do not support the following:
> 
> o ^^ for logical exclusive or.  Unlike the other "short-circuit" forms (&&
> and ||), this doesn't save any execution -- both operands must be evaluated.

So what if they both have to be evaluated?  If you need to use some
kludge to get ^^ (like !a != !b), you will still wind up evaluating both
operands.  That's just the way XOR works.  Just because it requires more
work is no reason to exclude it from the language.

> 
> Frank Adams                           ihnp4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
> Multimate International    52 Oakland Ave North    E. Hartford, CT 06108

I don't want to come off sounding like a fluff picker, so just for the
benefit of those of you who care, I did agree with the rest of the
article.  If net traffic weren't such a big issue, I'd have included the
rest of the article as well, with more agreeable comments added.

					Don Nash

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