Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!bbn!apple!well!nagle
From: nagle@well.UUCP (John Nagle)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Referencing NULL pointers
Message-ID: <12706@well.UUCP>
Date: 15 Jul 89 17:14:52 GMT
References: <20245@adm.BRL.MIL>
Reply-To: nagle@well.UUCP (John Nagle)
Lines: 9


     This used to be a religious argument in the LISP community, where
it takes the form "is (CAR NIL) meaningful?"  After twenty five years,
the consensus is "no".  Ten years ago, there were still opposing camps.
C is a younger language, and it may take another decade to achieve
unanimity.  But the trend is clear.  Dereferencing NULL is a Bad Thing.


					John Nagle