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From: gwyn@smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Unnecessary Macros (was Re: Unnecessary Parenthesis)
Message-ID: <8629@smoke.ARPA>
Date: 5 Oct 88 04:14:49 GMT
References: <2089@ssc-vax.UUCP> <441@kaon.uchicago.edu> <1401@devsys.oakhill.UUCP> <23@datcon.UUCP> <8577@smoke.ARPA> <8078@haddock.ima.isc.com> <8590@smoke.ARPA> <701@accelerator.eng.ohio-state.edu>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 20

In article <701@accelerator.eng.ohio-state.edu> rob@kaa.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rob Carriere) writes:
>In article <8590@smoke.ARPA> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>) writes:
>>One wonders whether [the inability to define a square macro] is much of a
>>problem.
>How about the following, deep in some inner loop:
>foo = square( sin( x )) + 1.7;

Another silly example.  I can't imagine a real algorithm that would want
this computation in it.

>temp = sin( x );
>foo = temp*temp + 1.7;
>is clearly less legible.

Most programmers wouldn't have any trouble with
	foo = sin(x);
	foo = foo*foo + 1.7;

I agree that an exponentiation operator would be handy,
but a "square" macro doesn't seem to help readability.