Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!agate!eris.berkeley.edu!mwm
From: mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike (I'll think of something yet) Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Re^2: Can you nest subroutines in C?
Message-ID: <26157@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 10 Jul 89 06:50:57 GMT
References: <4586@crash.cts.com>
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike (I'll think of something yet) Meyer)
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
Lines: 28

In article <4586@crash.cts.com> wade@pnet01.cts.com (Wade Bickel) writes:
<        Plese understand, I like C.  Since I'm mosly writing solo applications
<or working with a few others on projects we expect no one else to have to
<maintain, C is great.  My only point is it would be improved by adding a few
<of the things Modula-2 has to offer.  I'd ike to see nesting and an equivalent
<to the WITH statement.  Both these things would be advntagous without any
<corresponding disadvantages.

Both of these changes would be non-trivial changes to the C langauge
(futzing with the visibility of variables is never trivial, and that's
what both of these changes do). They would both make the compiler
bigger, thus slowing down either compilation (if the compiler lives on
disk) or system performance (if it stays in memory) or both for anyone
who uses it.

In any case, if you really believe these would improve C, don't talk
about it here, convince the ANSI committe to put it in. To do that,
you're going to have to have a working implementation ready when they
start the update to the standard. I'd recommend starting with gcc, as
it's pretty close to the standard, produces good code, and has a
number of interesting extensions already.

	<mike
--
When all our dreams lay deformed and dead		Mike Meyer
We'll be two radioactive dancers			mwm@berkeley.edu
Spinning in different directions			ucbvax!mwm
And my love for you will be reduced to powder		mwm@ucbjade.BITNET