Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!think!barmar
From: barmar@think.COM (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: hardcoded constants
Message-ID: <33459@think.UUCP>
Date: 14 Dec 88 17:16:47 GMT
References: <1988Dec8.173158.11839@utzoo.uucp> <846@starfish.Convergent.COM> <9134@smoke.BRL.MIL> <1988Dec13.172306.16195@utzoo.uucp>
Sender: news@think.UUCP
Reply-To: barmar@kulla.think.com.UUCP (Barry Margolin)
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
Lines: 13

In article <1988Dec13.172306.16195@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>The policy we try to follow is that if you must hard-code a constant,
>then it must be accompanied by a comment explaining why that particular
>number is there.

My rule of thumb is that if it needs a comment, it should be a
manifest constant, not a hardcoded literal.  The name of the constant
then serves as self-documentation.

Barry Margolin
Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com
{uunet,harvard}!think!barmar