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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Order of evaluation, machine floating point
Message-ID: <7864@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 4-Apr-87 02:16:23 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.7864
Posted: Sat Apr  4 02:16:23 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Apr-87 02:16:23 EST
References: <4775@brl-adm.ARPA> <7779@utzoo.UUCP> <521@cpocd2.UUCP> <2910@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> <739@xanth.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 26

> 	... ANSI should have mandated respecting
> 	parentheses for evaluation order, so that code executes the
> 	way it reads.  This would break _no_ code, and would let
> 	programmers' intuition be of some use in writing code in C.

It would not break any code; it just would make an awful lot of code, most
of it completely insensitive to evaluation order, noticeably slower.  As
for programmer's intuition, I assure you that it takes very little effort
to get used to thinking of evaluation order as unknown.

>	I just can't be very sympathetic, in a time of ever increasing
>	computer speeds and memory, to optimizing the code at the
>	expense of the coder.  The latter is the big expense item
>	these days, and has been for over ten years now.

In a time of ever-increasing demands on computer systems by ever more
impatient users, I just can't be very sympathetic to optimizing the coder's
time at the expense of the users' time.  The latter group supplies the
motive for all this software, remember.

If you want a coder-based argument, consider that the coder is trying to
work on a machine (or via a disk server) that will run faster with code
that is optimized better.
-- 
"We must choose: the stars or	Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the dust.  Which shall it be?"	{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry