A question of style

[Chip Salzenberg]

According to tps at chem.ucsd.edu (Tom Stockfisch):
>I think the point here is that style evolves, and wouldn't if people never
>strayed from K&R.  For instance, what if I justified my use of
>	
>	while (*s++ = *t++)
>		;
>
>by quoting K&R (I p. 101, II p. 106)?

You're right.  Style evolves.  However, stylistic evolution based on common
errors is different from arbitrary changes based on personal preference.
Your example contains an assignment used as a boolean value, which is a
questionable practice at best, due to the possibility of "="/"==" error.
So the alternative "while ((*s++ = *t++) != 0) {}" is demonstrably better.

On the other hand, I'd say that "c=getchar(), c!=EOF" provides little, if
any, benefit over "(c = getchar()) != EOF".  It has the advantage of fewer
parentheses, true, but it has the disadvantage of multiple references to
the single variable.  In my opinion, it's not a worthwhile tradeoff.

>Perhaps it is just because I have never learned lisp, but what *I* find
>most difficult to read are multiple sets of parentheses.

I hate LISP, aka Lots of Irritating Stupid Parentheses.  But we're not
talking brain surgery here.  My getchar() expression nests only one level
deeper than "c=getchar(), c!=EOF".  I usually parse it visually this way:

	if ((c = getchar()) != EOF)
	    ^       open^ ^       ^close
	   two open      two close

>Am I the only person who is slowed down by lots of parentheses?

Idioms are easy to parse once you're used to them.  Use tricks, as above.
-- 
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Chip Salzenberg at A T Engineering;  <chip at ateng.com> or <uunet!ateng!chip>
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