Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!fluke!mce
From: mce@tc.fluke.COM (Brian McElhinney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: LSC almost gets it right.
Message-ID: <5077@fluke.COM>
Date: 6 Sep 88 17:21:17 GMT
References: <2423@rti.UUCP> <670@mailrus.cc.umich.edu>
Sender: news@tc.fluke.COM
Organization: SRS Recursive Software, Castrovalva, WA
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In article <670@mailrus.cc.umich.edu> shane@um.cc.umich.edu (Shane Looker) writes:
>The manual clearly states that the MacTraps calls do not have prototypes.
>
>You can add prototypes with no problem.

Documenting a bug does not make it a feature (the Require Prototypes option
should *require* prototypes for *all* routines; anything less is a bug).

Adding prototypes yourself would be time consuming and error prone, which is
very likely the reason that traps are not prototyped in the first place.  The
only other reason I can think of is that it could "break" some "working" code.
How many DisposHandle() calls are really correctly written?  Sure they work,
but they would never pass lint -- if there were such a thing as lint :-(.

Given the general quality of LSC, I am confident that trap prototypes will
eventually be added.  I have to admit to some disappointment though; same as
when I realized that lint was not provided.  Lint is not perfect, but it is a
useful tool.  In the immortal words of Henry Spencer:

	"Thou shall run lint consistently and study its pronouncements
	 with care, for verily its perception and judgement oft exceed
	 thine."



Brian McElhinney
mce@tc.fluke.com