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From: dbrooks@osf.org (David Brooks)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Machine readable form of K+R.
Message-ID: <22787@paperboy.OSF.ORG>
Date: 12 Jun 91 14:14:12 GMT
References: <676362087.62@egsgate.FidoNet.Org>
Sender: news@OSF.ORG
Organization: Open Software Foundation
Lines: 23

Lars.Wirzenius@f98.n250.z1.FidoNet.Org (Lars Wirzenius) writes:
|> In the Preface (page x in my copy of the second edition, first paragraph),
|> it says:
|> 
|> 	"As before, all examples have been tested directly from the
|> 	text, which is in machine-readable form."
|>
|> I have always
|> assumed that the authors wanted to reduce the suspicions of
|> typographical errors in typeset code, which are all too common in some
|> books.

Me, too.  Or, indeed, of the code being typed in off the top of their
collective head, which is all too common in many environments.

Perhaps the problem is this: in 1978, the idea of book authors using
anything like a word processor was still fairly novel.  By 1988, it was the
default assumption.  Thus, the phrase, "which is in machine-readable form",
copied verbatim from Preface 1 to Preface 2, has acquired undue emphasis
simply by being mentioned.
-- 
David Brooks				dbrooks@osf.org
Systems Engineering, OSF		uunet!osf.org!dbrooks