Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: A question of style
Message-ID: <1989Dec3.011004.8877@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1989Dec1.231901.17719@aqdata.uucp>
Date: Sun, 3 Dec 89 01:10:04 GMT

In article <1989Dec1.231901.17719@aqdata.uucp> sullivan@aqdata.uucp (Michael T. Sullivan) writes:
>... Why?  Not because
>the commas weren't proper but because "most programmers did it that way."
>Is that really a good enough reason? ...

Actually, yes.  As a professional programmer, one of my jobs is to make
my code intelligible to my successors.  Given a choice between two
otherwise-equivalent constructs, one of them likely to be familiar and
the other likely to be unfamiliar, the unfamiliar one is always going
to be harder to understand.  Doing things in odd ways without good reason
is gratuitous obstructionism, placing your ego above your responsibilities.
-- 
Mars can wait:  we've barely   |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
started exploring the Moon.    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu