ANSI C prototypes

[Steve Summit]

In article <14382 at smoke.brl.mil> gwyn at smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>Oh, for Christ's sake, nobody is forcing you to do anything.  If you
>don't like prototypes just don't use them!
>...what prevents you from using the old style if you like it better?

Section 3.9.5, which is a red flag to any responsible programmer;
a standard which marks a feature as "obsolescent" is clearly
stating that the feature may be withdrawn later, that it is being
included only for the benefit of existing code, and that new code
is well advised not to use it.  (I'm sure Doug knows this.)
Actually, I thought I might be editorializing a bit there, but
the definition of obsolescent in section 1.8 says the same thing.

I'm still using old-style definitions and declarations, but I
expect to start taking flak for it soon, because the party line
today seems to be that prototypes are a Good Thing.  I don't
particularly like them, mostly because of the maintenance issues
several people have already mentioned.  (At least now I know I'm
not the only one who feels that way!)  I'll probably convert to
them myself, though, as soon as all the compilers I use support
them, or whenever I start using tricks like the one Karl Heuer
will remind us of next.

I feel it's as likely that old-style function syntax will be
removed in 10 years or so as it was that =+ and the like would be
removed 10 years or so after they were officially deprecated.
(Oh, look: they _were_ removed :-) .)

                                            Steve Summit
                                            scs at adam.mit.edu