Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: This one bit me today
Message-ID: <1426@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 24 Oct 89 17:55:11 GMT
References: <2651@hub.UUCP>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Distribution: usa
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center
Lines: 33

In article <2651@hub.UUCP>, dougp@voodoo.ucsb.edu writes:

|  A #define that would replace text even within tokens so I could
|  do something like
|  
|  #define @ *

  Yecch! As my youngest used to say "yucckie-poo!". I can see the side
effects of in-token substitution:
	#define put get
The parser would be a bear, since every part of every token would have
to be checked. The only use for this I can see is to compete in the
obfuscated C contest.

  You can do operator overloading in a number of languages.

|  I'd also like to see /# comment #/ as the nested comment charactor
|  (can anyone think of a way /# or #/ would look like some other 
|  operation like /* can?) maby /* */ can be sent the way of =*

  There is already a way to comment out code which doesn't depend on any
nested whatever: #if 0 ... #endif does nicely, and IT can be nested. I
think adding /# is unnecessary and replacing it would break too many
programs. I do agree that /* was not the best idea for a comment
delimiter, but hindsight is wonderful. I think a previously unused
symbol like $ as a comment inducer would be nice, but that's an American
symbol and would have to be replaced by a triglyph. I certainly wouldn't
suggest a change now because the problems are slight and well known.
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
"The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called
'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see
that the world is flat!" - anon