Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ptsfa!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
From: peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Verbose declarations proposal (Re: Address of Array)
Message-ID: <1304@sugar.UUCP>
Date: 23 Dec 87 02:05:29 GMT
References: <126@citcom.UUCP> <2550034@hpisod2.HP.COM> <1854@haddock.ISC.COM> <1449@houdi.UUCP>
Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX
Lines: 28

There's method to the madness:

In article <1449@houdi.UUCP>, marty1@houdi.UUCP (M.BRILLIANT) writes:
> I propose that the C language be extended to allow verbose type
> declarations in these words, in addition to the present conventions for
> concise type declarations.
> ...
> and the verbose declaration:
> 	type (array[] of pointer to array[][5] of pointer to
> 		function(double) returning array[3][5][7] of int) bar;
> would be synonymous with a concise type declaration that I couldn't
> write to save my life.

I'd hate to figure out how to use something like this myself. In practice
you'de never be able to use it... if you can't write the declaration,
you can't use it. If you can't understand the declaration, you can't
use it. And if the declaration is organised differently than the use,
you're not likely to connect one to another.

Or do you want to define a verbose usage language.

Personally, I think anyone who'd use something like the above expression
should be shot. No matter how they declared it.

You can always write a preprocessor that turns C-BOL into C. Shouldn't
even be too hard. A couple of days work with Yacc.
-- 
-- Peter da Silva  `-_-'  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
-- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.