Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site bu-cs.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!bu-cs!root
From: root@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: The wonders of C
Message-ID: <325@bu-cs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 30-Mar-85 22:50:18 EST
Article-I.D.: bu-cs.325
Posted: Sat Mar 30 22:50:18 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Apr-85 00:39:23 EST
References: <9436@brl-tgr.ARPA>, <7127@watdaisy.UUCP>
Organization: Boston Univ Comp. Sci.
Lines: 18

All this griping about accidently typing things like

	if(c = NL)
when the user meant == reminds me of an old joke around here
about another bell labs language. We used to tell students
that you could put on a pair of golf shoes, jump all over a
keypunch card (told you it was old) and it would be a legal
SNOBOL program...heck, ' ' was an operator!

I personally doubt anyone will ever design a language that
did much to prevent typos by it's syntax. Structure editors
might be a better solution although it would have to be pretty
clever to pick up the above error (DWIM.) Besides, syntax errors
are annoying while semantic errors (the above falls in between)
are where the real problems lie, I guess the former are easier
to gripe about from an armchair so they get more attention.

	-Barry Shein, Boston University