Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!killer!elg
From: elg@killer.Dallas.TX.US (Eric Green)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: language commenting constructs
Message-ID: <7555@killer.Dallas.TX.US>
Date: 16 Mar 89 02:41:09 GMT
References: <10460@lanl.gov>
Organization: The Unix(R) Connection, Dallas, Texas
Lines: 36

in article <10460@lanl.gov>, jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) says:
> do otherwise.  The comment syntax which requires explicit termination
> of comments _IS_ more difficult to learn to use safely.  The safe
> use of the construct is also (marginally) more difficult in actual
> use.  It is doubtful that anyone designing a new language would
> consider the old-fashioned C-like syntax to be desireable.

In a recent program, I have code similiar to the following: */

/* table */
int Transitions[NUMSTATE][NUMCLASS] = {
/*  statenum   digit  number delimiter quote EOF EOL ... */
/* 0 */          2,     5,     8,       15,   10, 19,
/* 2 */          4,     19,   ....

The languages in which I have programmed most are "C", Pascal,
various assembly languages, and Lisp/Scheme. The first two have
explicit terminators, the latter two make everything between a ";" and
EOL a comment. When I do assembler or Lisp I regularly run into
situations where I want to imbed a comment into a statement for
clarity's sake, and can't do it. 

So it's sort of like the choice between using "C" and using a
higher-level language. "C" is more flexible and powerful for many
types of code (e.g. write a device driver in Prolog? Out of your
mind!). But that flexibility has a price -- it's a lot easier to make
mistakes. As far as language comment style is concerned, it's a matter
of wehther you want to pay the price for flexibility or not. If your
language is one that'll be used in high-risk situations -- e.g. Ada --
you might decide you DON'T want that flexibility.


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