Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!rochester!ur-tut!sunybcs!boulder!hao!ames!amdcad!sun!pitstop!sundc!hqda-ai!yendor!fujiirm
From: fujiirm@yendor.UUCP (Roger Fujii)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Power operator?
Message-ID: <52@yendor.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jan 88 20:30:42 GMT
References: <47000029@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> <10063@mimsy.UUCP> <646@l.cc.purdue.edu>
Organization: Applied Computing Technology, Reston, VA
Lines: 49

In article <646@l.cc.purdue.edu>, cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
> In article <10063@mimsy.UUCP>, chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes:
> > 
> > 	#include <math.h>
> > 	...
> > 		double a, x;
> > 		...
> > 		a = pow(x, 7.);
> 
> I think everyone should consider this unsatisfactory. 

I suppose that strcpy, strcmp... are also unsatisfactory also.

> One reason is that requiring the writing of a subroutine call is that
> this requires people to use that notation instead of writing 
> 
> 	x = y ** z	or x = y ! z.
> 
> Similar thinking would require one to write x = sub(y, z) instead of
> x = y - z.  This is a major design flaw in all HLLs which I know.

Depends on what point of view.  From a mathematical point of view, sure.
But then, from a mathematical point of view, variable assignment (x = 1)
makes no sense either (unless x never changes), even though its meaning is
obvious in most programming languages.

I think a *lot* of people are forgetting/misunderstanding exactly what 'c' is.
C is basically an "abstract assember".  All the actual language knows about
are data types (ints, floats, doubles, structs...), certain *ELEMENTARY*
operators (+, -, *, /, data copy, data compare..... - things that have a fair
probability of having an assember equivalent), and control statements
(ifs, gotos, subroutine calls...). [ I know this is a *gross* simplification,
but this is what I think a fair assement of the language is ].

*EVERYTHING* else is done via function call.  Therefore, having pow() makes
much more *sense* than having a ** (this is not to say that it makes more
intuitive sense, but rather that knowing the language, you would not expect
the compiler to do this).

I really don't think "well, FORTRAN has it" is really a valid reason for
mucking up the language.  This is not to say I do not want the language
changed, but rather that I would like to see it changed within its "scope"
or flavor, rather than because people want to make it look like another
language.

-- 
Roger Fujii - ACT, Reston, VA			Phone:		(703)471-9433
Internet: fujiirm@cml.rpi.edu
UUCP: ..!{mimsy,sundc}!{prometheus,hqda-ai}!yendor!fujiirm