Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!ukma!nrl-cmf!ames!hc!lanl!jlg
From: jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: i++, i+=1, i=i+1
Message-ID: <3697@lanl.gov>
Date: 16 Sep 88 19:16:55 GMT
References: <13583@mimsy.UUCP>
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 18

From article <13583@mimsy.UUCP>, by chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek):
> Very well.  Let us remove the `**' operator from FORTRAN, replacing it
> with the `POWER' intrinsic.  The difference is purely textual.

My major objection to the pow() intrinsic (as you well know if you read
the _long_ argument about it) was that C implements it inefficiently.
Exponentiation should be an in-line function (if the compiler is capable).
The C language design makes this impossible (pow() is an external, therefore
it must be possible for the user to substitute his own version at load time,
therefore it cannot be expanded in-line at compile time).  The ANSI C
standard will apparently address this.  A secondary objection is that
exponentiation is a mathematical operation for which mathematicians
and others have always had (and still expect) a shorthand syntax.
Assignment operator(s) have not this standing expectation from the
user community - so shorthand variants really are just textual sugar
for the few that _need_ such things.

J. Giles