Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!ncar!boulder!sunybcs!rutgers!rochester!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!ur-valhalla!micropen!dave
From: dave@micropen (David F. Carlson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Yet Another Lint Foul-up
Summary: good engineering practice
Keywords: Idle curiosity.
Message-ID: <621@micropen>
Date: 6 Jan 89 20:01:15 GMT
References: <1298@tank.uchicago.edu>
Organization: Micropen Dirent Writing Systems, Pittsford, NY
Lines: 30

In article <1298@tank.uchicago.edu>, vevea@paideia.uchicago.edu (Jack L. Vevea) writes:
> 
> 	I've passively watched the discussion of lint's problems with
>   exit(0) from main(), and find myself wondering why it matters.  I use
...
>   Why else be concerned when you _know_ that the warning is inconsequential?

Jack, you have stumbled on the difference between an academician "playing"
with a computer and a software engineer working with one.

Just as with comments ("why do I need comments since I know what this program
does anyway?"), the purpose of linting code is not for some anal retentive
satisfaction it gives but to engineer a product such that it can be as bug-free,
sematically valid and long-term maintainable as current tools (lint, etc.)
allow.  This is what doing a good job is.  If I patch together some scaffold
test code I don't care whether it lints.  However, when I produce a for-sale
productionized piece of code I want it to be sound not only for this compiler
and this developer but for any C compiler and any future maintainers.  Lint
isn't perfect but using it is infinitely preferable to pretending that my 
programs (before linting) are without easily detectable and correctable flaws.





-- 
David F. Carlson, Micropen, Inc.
micropen!dave@ee.rochester.edu

"The faster I go, the behinder I get." --Lewis Carroll