Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!cmcl2!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Power operator?
Message-ID: <6969@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 7 Jan 88 02:21:37 GMT
References: <47000029@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 18

In article <47000029@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>I've been wondering why there is no power operator in C. Did the ANSI 
>committee consider adding one, and if so, why wasn't it done?

Yes, X3J11 considered this and numerous other obvious suggestions
for additions to the language.  It reaffirmed the original deliberate
C design decision to not build in an exponentiation operator, but
rather leave it to a library function (pow()).  The idea is that an
exponentiation operator hides a potentially large amount of
computation, which runs counter to "the spirit of C".  It is true
that (for example)
	expression ** 2
would be convenient, for much the same reasons as C's op= operators.
However, this did not overcome the reasons for the original design.

REMINDER:  This is my personal opinion.  If you feel strongly about
this, comment to X3J11 during the second formal public review.  Be
sure to provide overwhelming reasons for making the change.