Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: const, volatile, etc [was Re: #defines with parameters]
Message-ID: <783@auspex.UUCP>
Date: 22 Dec 88 09:20:59 GMT
References: <438@aber-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Distribution: eunet,world
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 24

>As to the matter in the specific paragraph you cite, I thought it was obvious
>that it supports my arguments.

It's "obvious" only if you take "optimizing references to variables in C
is bad" as an axiom.  You seem to take it as an axiom.  Others do not.

>It merely reiterates what is common knowledge, that even PCC peephole
>optimizers tend to be quite buggy,

1) Ritchie's compiler wasn't PCC-based

2) it only reiterates that if you consider optimizing references to
   variables in that fashion to be a bug.  Again, others do not.

Note that in the cases where you consider X to be true, and others do
not, it should be quite apparent that repeating "X is true" 5000 times
is only going to annoy the others, not convince them.

>What you "generally" consider to be a bug or a feature is your
>business after all, but word twisting can only go so far.

Just because *you* consider it to be a bug, does that make it a bug even
if 99% of the users of the Ritchie compiler did not?  Yeesh.  Talk about
word-twisting; the pretzel factory seems to be working overtime....