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From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Creeping ADAisms in C
Message-ID: <5827@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 4-May-87 00:50:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.5827
Posted: Mon May  4 00:50:43 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 5-May-87 00:43:10 EDT
References: <1535@umn-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 19

In article <1535@umn-cs.UUCP> papowell@umn-cs.UUCP (Patrick Powell) writes:
>A function prototype is a declaration of the TYPE of a function.  So
>why not call it a function declaration,  and the place where you define
>it,  a function DEFINITION?  Why introduce new jargon?

This one is so easy to answer that I wonder what the point of the
complaint really was.  There is more than one way to declare a function.
The "old style" (K&R) declaration was of necessity grandfathered in
when the "new style" (prototype) declaration was admitted to the
language.  Calling function prototypes simply "function declarations"
is inaccurate when only the new style is meant.  Note also that a
function definition under some circumstances can serve as the
function declaration.

I think "prototype" is a rather good term (conforming well to normal
English usage) for the specification of what you call the "type" of a
function (which C programmers might easily confuse with the type
RETURNED by a function, since before prototypes the function
arguments were not formally part of a function's type).