A question of style

[Chip Salzenberg]

According to jeffa at hpmwtd.HP.COM (Jeff Aguilera):
>I understand (and accept) that most programmers are compelled to use the K&R
>form, following their masters' dogma blindly, criticizing all others.

Mr. Aguilera understands nothing. "Criticizing all others," indeed!  A
certain phrase mentioning pots and kettles comes to mind.

A construct's being quickly identifiable by most C programmers makes that
thing immediately preferable to an equivalent but less common construct.
And if there's one book a C programmer has almost certainly read, it's K&R.

The general rule I adhere to most strictly is:  "Repetition is evil."
For example, "i = i + 1" is inherently harder to read than "i++", since the
former requires the identification of two variable names (albeit identical
ones) whereas the latter only contains one name.  The expression
"c=getchar(), c!=EOF" is harder to read than "(c = getchar()) != EOF" for
the same reason.
-- 
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Chip Salzenberg at A T Engineering;  <chip at ateng.com> or <uunet!ateng!chip>
	  "The Usenet, in a very real sense, does not exist."