Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ukma!gatech!mcnc!decvax!decwrl!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!nuchat!sugar!peter
From: peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: A bad design decision early on in ANSI C.
Message-ID: <1377@sugar.UUCP>
Date: 7 Jan 88 13:28:42 GMT
References: <572@ambush.UUCP> <144@ateng.UUCP>
Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX
Lines: 22

In article <144@ateng.UUCP>, chip@ateng.UUCP (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
> In article <572@ambush.UUCP> kimcm@ambush.UUCP writes:
> > [concerning structure assignment and structures as function arguments]

> > Although I agree that it is a nice feature - but dangerous on some systems:

> >	1) Forget the & when passing a pointer blows your program.

> Forget an ampersand almost anywhere in C and your program goes out to lunch.

Forget an ampersand almost anywhere else in 'C' and my compiler tells me
I'm mixing integers and pointers, or structures and pointers, or whatever
else I might be mixing.

> Now the final word: "If you're _that_ concerned, lint the program first."

If I *had* lint, I would. Instead I have a compiler that does a very good
job of type checking where it can. Thanks to structure passing, this is one
place it hasn't a hope in hell of protecting me.
-- 
-- Peter da Silva  `-_-'  ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
-- Disclaimer: These U aren't mere opinions... these are *values*.