learning C (was: Re: ambiguous ?)

[Jim Giles]

>From article <225800228 at uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>, by mcdonald at uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:
> Ummm- the user always has control of evaluation order in && and ||
> constructs. And any other place too, by use of temporary variables.
> I thought this flame war was  over the inability of the compiler
> to optimize evaluation order in && and || constructs.

This _discussion_ is about whether C has _efficient_ means of forcing
evaluation order in _several_ contexts (the first was the order of
argument evaluation in a function call).  Temporary variables are
_not_ an efficient solution (unless they are optimized out - something
C compilers are rarely clever enough to do).  Temporary variables also
have a negative impact on readibility (by diffusing the 'locality' of
specific operations).

Now a "flame war" would be an exchange with no technical content in which
the participants used phrases like "you're an ignorant @#$#%@ who doesn't
know his #$@ from a $#@%$!!".  I have tried, at least, to keep above
that level (so far anyway).