Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!mordor!sri-spam!rutgers!mcnc!rti!trt
From: trt@rti.UUCP (Thomas Truscott)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: interesting program
Message-ID: <1998@rti.UUCP>
Date: 1 Feb 88 02:37:04 GMT
References: <19@berick.UUCP> <10391@mimsy.UUCP>
Organization: Research Triangle Institute, RTP, NC
Lines: 20
Summary: Fixing this compiler oversight will reduce net noise

> ... What does the following program print?
> ...
>	k = k++;

Gems like this are posted to Usenet every month or so (it seems),
to which a typical response might be:

> The only flame this deserves is `RTFM'.
[note: page 50 of the K+R C book.]

I wish the responses would instead be something like
"It is a crime that your compiler misses blatant errors such as that."
If we all said bad things about compilers that passed such code
I bet the vendors would fix them!  Maybe even AT&T.

To those who feel that such checking belongs in lint and not in cc, I ask:
Don't current C compilers already have dozens of different warning
messages, such as "unsigned >= always true"?
Is it wrong to add another which will save man-years of debugging
(not to mention man-years of time spent reading comp.unix.c)?
	Tom Truscott