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From: jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: ambiguous ?
Message-ID: <14110@lanl.gov>
Date: 23 Oct 89 21:18:44 GMT
References: <11388@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 25

From article <11388@smoke.BRL.MIL>, by gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn):
> [...]
> In the total context of C as an integrated programming language,
> the short-circuit nature of the && and || operators is very
> valuable.  [...]

I have still not made my point, but I'm close.  Of course the short
circuit nature of these operators is valuable.  If they didn't
short circuit, you would still need a way of providing that functionality.
As I said previously, some researchers have maintained that this
functionality should be provided some other way - leaving the logical
connectives to their usual mathematical purity.  I have said that I
have no particular opinion on this.

However, my _POINT_ was that, if the short circuit nature of these
operators is valuable, then there might also be other contexts where
user control of expression evaluation order might _ALSO_ be valuable!
C doesn't provide such other mechanisms - WHY NOT?!?!?!?

> One can learn to exploit them (or, in your case, perhaps, simply
> to deal with them), but discussion about whether what is, should
> be, are a waste of time.

Why?  Is C set in concrete?  What about C++ ???   How about (C++)++ ?
Why are you so defensive about possible change - maybe even improvement?