Xref: utzoo comp.lang.c:7933 alt.flame:1778
Path: utzoo!hoptoad!ptsfa!pacbell!ames!husc6!linus!philabs!micomvax!ray
From: ray@micomvax.UUCP (Ray Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,alt.flame
Subject: Re: == vs =
Message-ID: <931@micomvax.UUCP>
Date: 8 Mar 88 23:25:59 GMT
References: <11216@brl-adm.ARPA> <2111@chinet.UUCP> <4403@garfield.UUCP> <891@micomvax.UUCP> <3295@psuvax1.psu.edu> <7273@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Reply-To: ray@micomvax.UUCP (Ray Dunn)
Followup-To: alt.flame
Organization: Philips Electronics Ltd. (TDS - Montreal) St. Laurent P.Q., Canada
Lines: 60
Posted: Tue Mar  8 18:25:59 1988

I assume everyone still remembers this discussion, my systems news
processing is so behind that......anyway....

In article <7273@brl-smoke.ARPA> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>Why are you guys wasting so much effort on a non-problem?
>If you prefer Pascal, then use it!

Doug, did it ever enter your head that so much effort is being "wasted"
because we "guys" *dont* think it is a non-problem.

We dont prefer Pascal.  We *do* prefer C.  We believe the use of the "="
operator in C, in conditionals, in the real world context of its many
meanings in many uses, is dangerous and error prone.

We believe that you should put a safety cage over a spinning gear, not just
put up a sign saying "Don't slip on the wet floor into this dangerous
device".


In <11915@brl-adm.ARPA> dsill@NSWC-OAS.arpa (Dave Sill) suggests that the
answer is "using competant [sic] C programmers".

This attitude, as well as being incompetently arrogant, just fails to
recognize the realities of life.

This attitude is one that leads to format commands being "designed" that
allows an "incompetent" user, through a slip of the fingers, to wipe his
hard disk!

What he is directly saying, for example, is:

...that lint is unnecessary, we should rely on the competence of the
programmer and not use lint.

...that we should rely on his own (in)ability to spell rather than attempt
to define a spelling methodology that would avoid him making errors [I don't
believe in spelling wars, but this was too relevant to avoid].

...that the recent language extensions which, for example, allow parameter
type specifications, are unneccessary because we should rely on the
programmer to always give the correct argument types to function calls!

Dave, don't you believe in removing from system designs, as much of the
human ability to make mistakes as possible?

> Like it or lump it.  It will never change.

Dave, the beauty of making statements like this and acting on them, is that
you will always be right!  It is wonderfully self fulfilling.  You'll never
achieve anything of course, but you'll always be right!

Remember me the next time you discover a "stupid" error in the code you are
writing, or when a typo costs you a couple of days work, or a poorly
designed user interface costs you a bonus!  All of these could be avoided if
you were competent in handling them!

Followups should perhaps be sent to alt.flame, you will notice the complete
absence of smiley faces (or is that spelt faeces)?

Ray Dunn.  ..{philabs, mnetor, musocs}!micomvax!ray