Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!jarthur!dfoster
From: dfoster@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Derek R. Foster)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Nested Comments in C -- A recent experience
Message-ID: <5418@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>
Date: 25 Mar 90 21:42:37 GMT
References: <9631@wpi.wpi.edu> <1990Mar18.045238.18224@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711
Lines: 35

In article <1990Mar18.045238.18224@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <9631@wpi.wpi.edu> msau@wpi.wpi.edu (Matt Saucier) writes:
>>... Although I don't use the nested comment
>>method (I use #ifdef DEBUG #endif (or whatever)), I know a lot of people who
>>do use them....
>
>As has been explained at length, several times, this is a thoroughly bad
>idea that programmers eventually learn to avoid.  It simply doesn't work
                                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>as well as #ifdef.
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You forgot to add "IN MY HUMBLE (or maybe not so humble, considering the
above statement) OPINION!" I have been using nested comments as debugging
tools for many years, and I have NEVER had a problem with them. The only
problem I have had is with people like you telling me I SHOULD have
problems with them, and telling me I shouldn't use them because YOU
think I'll have problems with them. (Which has not happened yet.)
I HAVE had problems with #ifdef and #endif -- they're a lot more trouble
to use when what I'm debugging is not a completely separate line. Not
to mention that I can't have my editor jump to matching #ifdef and #endif
pairs, regardless of nesting, like I can with /* and */ (I just position
the cursor, press ctrl-q-[, and it finds the matching /* or */) All in all,
when I hear you telling me "it simply doesn't work as well", and I consider
my own experiences with the above facts, my first inclination is to laugh
in your face. I have saved myself a TREMENDOUS amount of time by not using
#ifdef and #endif when I don't think they are necessary. You may think nested
comments aren't worth the trouble, but that's just YOUR OPINION. Say "_I_ 
haven't found it as easy to use, and _I_ think #ifdef and #endif are bettter"
Other people may have had different experiences. 

>MSDOS, abbrev:  Maybe SomeDay |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
>an Operating System.          | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

Derek Riippa Foster