Xref: utzoo comp.lang.c:33479 alt.religion.computers:2009
Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!emory!att!att!ima!dirtydog!karl
From: karl@ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,alt.religion.computers
Subject: Re: Argument declaration style (Was: ANSI C prototypes)
Message-ID: <1990Nov06.233654.29974@dirtydog.ima.isc.com>
Date: 6 Nov 90 23:36:54 GMT
References: <1990Nov2.030556.27759@ccu.umanitoba.ca> <RJC.90Nov3153129@brodie.uk.ac.ed.cstr> <3933.27353319@cc.helsinki.fi> <_1X6_32@xds13.ferranti.com> <3944.27367fb2@cc.helsinki.fi>
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Reply-To: karl@ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Organization: Interactive Systems
Lines: 26

In article <3944.27367fb2@cc.helsinki.fi> jaakola@cc.helsinki.fi writes:
>Yeah, everything *would* work fine, if we assumed infinite line width!

It consumes more width than your style, but it also consumes less height.  I
consider that a useful tradeoff, as it makes it more likely that the entire
function will fit on a single screen.  (Also, I very rarely have a function
whose prototype doesn't fit on a single line.)

>The point is: with the old style you can put enough information on a
>SINGLE line - the most natural unit of textual information in UNIX-
>like environments.

This is interesting, because I use the exact same argument in *favor* of the
new style.  If you write
	void foo(x, y)
	  char *x;
	  int y;
	{
and you grep for the declaration, you don't see the types of the arguments.
(And it's even worse if you put the "void" on a separate line!)  With
	void foo(char *x, int y) {
you see all the relevant information at once.  Even with pre-ANSI code I use
	void foo(x, y) char *x; int y; {
for the same reason, but the invention of prototypes made most lines shorter.

Karl W. Z. Heuer (karl@ima.isc.com or uunet!ima!karl), The Walking Lint