On Friday 25 October 2013, [email protected] wrote: > Actually, Werner wrote quite a bit about how the parenthesis can hide > errors (or worse, malicious code). > > > It is also a sign that the programmer has no intention to use my > > ignorance in order to install a backdoor. > > So this seems a direct contradiction. ;-) The code he quoted actually > was an attempt at doing just that, and it only worked because of the > parentheses. IMHO it's not the parenthesis, but the == operator. Using = instead of e.g. := is just too easily overlooked, since comparison using = is SO NATURAL. It's just like != is not as easy to understand as <>. It simply doesn't "catch your eye".
Therefore, when I started C, I used things like EQ, LT, GT instead (long live the preprocessor). Added to that is the problem that a comparison is not obligatory in C. Finally, C's strength is also it's weakness. It's cool you can "chain" a million instructions into one statement, but this is one of the consequences. Pascal enforces more structure, but can be tedious (and boring) in some aspects. In short: I concur where the problems are concerned, but I don't think eliminating parenthesis is the solution. It's far more fundamental. I remember Ritchie saying: "yes, I made errors when designing Unix. I should have named "umount" "unmount"". I think = and == fall into the same category. ;-) Hans Bezemer -- I have no Facebook account. Consequently, I have no friends and I don't like anything. Deal with it. Visit our website! http://thebeez.home.xs4all.nl/4tH/ *** Home of the 4tH compiler! *** _______________________________________________ Qi Hardware Discussion List Mail to list (members only): [email protected] Subscribe or Unsubscribe: http://lists.en.qi-hardware.com/mailman/listinfo/discussion
