«

OK, I was at a code review today and got asked a strange questions (at
least I thought it was). I pointed out that the naming convention they
were using for macros clashed with one of the reserved forms for
identifies in the standard. After some shock and disbelief, the lead
of the project agreed to change to convention. One of the engineers
piped up and asked, "Do we really want to accept the standard?" I
didn't know how to answer other than response, "If you are writing C
code, why would you not?"

REH

REH said:

> OK, I was at a code review today and got asked a strange questions (at
> least I thought it was). I pointed out that the naming convention they
> were using for macros clashed with one of the reserved forms for
> identifies in the standard. After some shock and disbelief, the lead
> of the project agreed to change to convention. One of the engineers
> piped up and asked, "Do we really want to accept the standard?" I
> didn't know how to answer other than response, "If you are writing C
> code, why would you not?"

There are definite benefits to /not/ accepting the Standard. It means you
can write any old junk you like and expect it to work. If it doesn't, you
simply yell "there's a bug in the compiler!" and switch to another vendor.
And another. And another...

--
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999
http://www.cpax.org.uk
email: rjh at above domain (but drop the www, obviously)

In article <>,
Richard Heathfield <> wrote:

>There are definite benefits to /not/ accepting the Standard. It means you
>can write any old junk you like and expect it to work. If it doesn't, you
>simply yell "there's a bug in the compiler!" and switch to another vendor.

It's much the same if you *do* follow the standard...

-- Richard

Really.. you should follow conventions. In practise, who can be
bothered
____________
Compilr - the online C#, C, VB.NET, Fortran compiler -
http://www.caller.me.uk/Compilr

writes:
> Really.. you should follow conventions. In practise, who can be
> bothered

Conventions like quoting previous context when posting a followup?

There are reports that groups.google.com has updated their software so
followups include the previous article by default. Did you
deliberately delete the lines starting with "> "?

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst- <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <*> <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.

REH wrote:

> One of the engineers
> piped up and asked, "Do we really want to accept the standard?" I
> didn't know how to answer other than response, "If you are writing C
> code, why would you not?"

Because your compiler supports some very useful extensions ?

Keith Thompson wrote:

> Conventions like quoting previous context when posting a followup?

Similar remarks have been made to me and I must say I find them very
puzzling.

First , do people who post here really have trouble remembering
the context of a thread which only contains 5-6 posts ? I don't see how
anyone can participate in a thread if their memory is that bad.

Second , is it so hard for people to obtain a newsreader which can
display all the
messages of a thread together and make it easy to switch back and
forth between messages ? Pine can do that , is available for a large
variety of platforms and free. I'm sure emacs can as well. I'm sure the
same applies to many other newsreaders.

Third , if it is so hard why not access the group through Google ? Or
is
that considered sacrilegious ?

Quoting context when the context is obvious is distracting and wastes
the reader's time.

Greetings,

wrote:
> Keith Thompson wrote:
>
>
>>Conventions like quoting previous context when posting a followup?
>
>
> Similar remarks have been made to me and I must say I find them very
> puzzling.
>
> First , do people who post here really have trouble remembering
> the context of a thread which only contains 5-6 posts ? I don't see how
> anyone can participate in a thread if their memory is that bad.

If I only read one thread/day, this wouldn't be a problem. When I read
several hundred it is. Also realize that my newsfeed may not get all of
the messages, or may get them out of order in which case I've no context
to determine to what the responses relate.

>
> Third , if it is so hard why not access the group through Google ? Or
> is
> that considered sacrilegious ?

I download messages & read at my leasure, often times when not connected
to a network. Google doesn't help much here, does it?

>
> Quoting context when the context is obvious is distracting and wastes
> the reader's time.
>

Do explain the logic in that statement. Someone can read this message as
written, without any others around it, and follow it clearly. How
exactly is this distracting and wasting time? If I don't need the
context, it's easy enough to skip the quoted parts.


--
Kyle A. York
Sr. Subordinate Grunt

kyle york wrote:

> Do explain the logic in that statement. Someone can read this message as
> written, without any others around it, and follow it clearly. How
> exactly is this distracting and wasting time? If I don't need the
> context, it's easy enough to skip the quoted parts.

But in order to realize that _you_could_have_skipped_them_
you need to read them first. If it turns out that you didn't need
to read them then you have wasted your time. Furthermore if
you are replying to a long post and you need to concentrate on
specific parts to comment on it makes it harder to locate those
parts on repeated readings if there is additional stuff.

Spiros Bousbouras

wrote:
> REH wrote:
>
>> One of the engineers
>> piped up and asked, "Do we really want to accept the standard?" I
>> didn't know how to answer other than response, "If you are writing C
>> code, why would you not?"
>
> Because your compiler supports some very useful extensions ?

And when you then need, or would find it useful, to use a different
compiler?

There are times when extensions are required, but why limit yourself to
your current platform without good reason? See
http://clc-wiki.net/wiki/Portability...I_C_Compliance for rather
more reasons for following the standard.
--
Flash Gordon, living in interesting times.
Web site - http://home.flash-gordon.me.uk/
comp.lang.c posting guidelines and intro:
http://clc-wiki.net/wiki/Intro_to_clc