Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!unisoft!gethen!farren
From: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Modern langauges
Message-ID: <519@gethen.UUCP>
Date: 6 Jan 88 01:48:09 GMT
References: <11072@brl-adm.ARPA>
Reply-To: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Organization: There's Unix there in Oakland
Lines: 22

V4039%TEMPLEVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (Stan Horwitz) writes:
>It's syntax is strange
>but that can be fixed to some extent by simply creating a file with
>#DEFINE statements defining thins in easier terms.

This is an astoundingly bad idea.  Doing this may result in the program
being more understandable for you (at least, until you learn C a little
better), but will make it damn near indecipherable for anyone else.  A
programmer should NEVER make the assumption that his code will never
be read or modified by anyone else; make it clear enough that anyone
who knows the language can understand it with a little work.  Excessive
use of #define statements leads to an incredible mishmash - check the
Obfuscated C Contest entries for extreme examples.

>Some of the symbols used for operations are insane.

No, just unusual.  APL, on the other hand, is insane :-)

-- 
Michael J. Farren             | "INVESTIGATE your point of view, don't just 
{ucbvax, uunet, hoptoad}!     | dogmatize it!  Reflect on it and re-evaluate
        unisoft!gethen!farren | it.  You may want to change your mind someday."
gethen!farren@lll-winken.llnl.gov ----- Tom Reingold, from alt.flame