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From: zben@umd5 (Ben Cranston)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: by-ref parameters
Message-ID: <1198@umd5>
Date: Tue, 26-Aug-86 18:56:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: umd5.1198
Posted: Tue Aug 26 18:56:59 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Aug-86 10:38:51 EDT
References: <522@bunny.UUCP> <6229@sun.uucp> <161@BMS-AT.UUCP> <3100@umcp-cs.UUCP> <2400@ihlpg.UUCP>
Reply-To: zben@umd5.umd.edu (Ben Cranston)
Distribution: net
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Lines: 17
Summary: How another language makes this more obvious

In article <2400@ihlpg.UUCP> tainter@ihlpg.UUCP (Tainter) writes:

> The win for by-reference parameters is the syntax of their use in the callEE.
> I do extensive personal programming in pascal and C.  When rereading pascal
> with by-reference parameters I do at times lose track of what is a var
> parameter at the callER level but never at the callEE level.  C fixes this
> but at the expense of excessive clutter and confusion with pointers inside
> the callEE.

I work extensively with a Sperry language called Plus.  It requires reference
arguments to be marked (with a percent sign) in BOTH places.  When I started
it seemed redundant, but it is interesting that it makes *sure* you know in
*both* contexts what is going on...
-- 
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Ben Cranston zben @ umd2.UMD.EDU    Kingdom of Merryland Sperrows 1100/92
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