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From: chris@umcp-cs.UUCP (Chris Torek)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: Expression sequencing query
Message-ID: <3888@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 15-Oct-86 19:43:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.3888
Posted: Wed Oct 15 19:43:03 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 15-Oct-86 23:59:08 EDT
References: <760@oakhill.UUCP> <111@titan.UUCP> <468@jc3b21.UUCP> <160@geac.UUCP> <umcp-cs.3769> <559@cubsvax.UUCP>
Sender: chris@umcp-cs.UUCP
Reply-To: chris@umcp-cs.UUCP (Chris Torek)
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Organization: University of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Sci.
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In article <559@cubsvax.UUCP> peters@cubsvax.UUCP (Peter S. Shenkin) writes:
>One of the attractions of C is its elegance and conciseness of
>expression; having to declare a variable only for the purpose of
>defining order of evaluation, even when the expression is extremely
>simple, is inelegant and inconcise, ....

I wrote a nice long reply to this, but it fell into the news rubbish
heap because the `active' file was too long.  Naturally the posting
software did not bother to keep a copy of my text, since inews
never fails.  Right.  Summary: if you think C needs something to
force evaluation order, *implement something*.  Test it well.  If
it works, *then* lobby for its adoption.  If, for example, you
think altering the meaning of parentheses will not be harmful, try
it.  If you prefer `order bracketing' such as `[a + b] + c', try
that.  But whatever you try, TEST IT WELL before you cast it in
concrete (via X3J11 or whatnot).