= vs. ==
Sean Selitrennikoff
selitr at jackal.cs.wisc.edu
Thu Sep 20 02:33:54 AEST 1990
Look, it really is a matter of semantics. The problem arises in that
most of the complainers out there started in PASCAL where
if (a = b)
is a test. Then we switched to C and it became a pain in the parse. In
any case, if we had never learned PASCAL (or other language with '=' as
a test) then we wouldn't be having this convo.
Personally I think every C compiler ought to have a switch -DUM_DUM that
checks for idiot errors and pops out a warning for them. That would solve
all these errors that we make that are typo's.
e.g.
for (i=0;i<10;i++);
printf("%d",i);
I hate it when the loop does nothing. We're so used to putting ';' at
the end of every line. I musta wasted days on things like this. In
any case, it's all a part of the hacking experience. What would life
be if you couldn't spend days looking for a bug only to have some dweeb
peer over your shoulder and find it immediately? You oughta try teaching
PASCAL 6 times a week and then trying to write a compiler in C. That'll
make you smile/grunt/groan several times a week.
Bottom Line: Let it be. That's the way it is, all we can do is build
our own 'lint' that catches our idiot errors.
- a minor opinion from someonw with a minor mind.
sean
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