Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!usc!ucsd!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hpl-opus!hpccc!hpcc01!hp-ses!hpcuhb!hpda!hpcupt1!jamiller
From: jamiller@hpcupt1.HP.COM (Jim Miller)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: problems/risks due to programming language, stories requested
Message-ID: <5940020@hpcupt1.HP.COM>
Date: 14 Mar 90 18:52:22 GMT
References: <9790@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
Lines: 60

>>
>>See how I left out the breaks on purpose.
>
>Cross you heart, how often in practical programming do you
>write such code?  And how often compared to normal switch
>statements where an easily elided break would introduce
>a simple bug? It might be that I never program in C, but I 
>have never felt the need for a fall-through. Also, it seem more

I have often written such code, in several different languages.
I implement some sort of "continue" statement.
     case (i) of begin
       1: ...
       2: ...
	  goto continue2;
       3:
       continue2: ...
       4: ...
       ...

Now I don't frequently do this, and as compared to the normal "break"
case it is very small.  However it IS a useful construct. 



Here is my $.02 on the subject of: a few of my favorite C "flaws".

1) The here-to-for & often mentioned break in the switch statement.
   A language that has "x++" so that a programmer will not make a mistake
   writing "x=x+1" is inconsistent is having a situation where he/she/it
   must have a separate statement for the normal coding practice. 

   IF I were to get into my time machine, I'd try to get C changed to
   implement a switch "continue" construct instead of the switch's "break".
   Right now I think it better be left alone, any fix that I can see would
   intail an imposible and or ugly transition.

2) "==" for logical equal compare.
   I don't like it because *I* make the mistake of "=" instead of
   "==" often in "if" conditions.  Also I find it difficult to find
   such mistakes because I also intentionally use "=" in "if" conditions.
   (One personal solution is to stop using "=" in conditions.)

   I don't know what I'd replace it by because I haven't found
   any alternative that I like -- and I've seen quite a few.  The closest
   to my personal liking is using ":=" instead of "=" for assignment.  All
   those opposed to typing two characters instead of one should agree with
   my above "continue" position -- but I bet they won't.

   "==" v.s. "="  is *my* greatest single typing error (as opposed to
   logical or coding error) that I make which does not get caught by the
   compiler and/or lint.  Yes I know that | v.s. ||  and & v.s. && have the
   same "problem".  It's just that I personally don't have the same
   problem.  I think it is because "|" and "&" don't get used with the
   frequency of "=".  I double check my use of both the single and the
   double usages whenever there is a hint of a problem.  I also tend to
   double check them when I first type them.  But double checking each
   "=" is not in me.

      jim - it's only my opinion so of course it's TRUTH - miller