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From: throopw@dg-rtp.dg.com (Wayne A. Throop)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: When it is amoral... (Re: When is a cast not a cast?)
Message-ID: <5952@xyzzy.UUCP>
Date: 13 May 89 05:16:04 GMT
References: <2747@buengc.BU.EDU> <2763@buengc.BU.EDU> <5779@xyzzy.UUCP> <2805@buengc.BU.EDU>
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> bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton)
>>The point is, Blair expects an object defined as one type to behave both
>>as if it were a pointer and an offset at the same time.  This is NOT sensible.
> Nay, I want it to behave as an object, and not as some nebulous changeling
> requiring maintenance-by-fiat.  If one is yea-big and the other is yo-big,
> then I damn well want the difference between them to be yea-yo, at the
> very least when I _tell_ it to be so.
> It's sensible aplenty.  

"Nebulous changeling"? "Yea-big"?  "Yo-big"?  This is *sensible*?

I'm guessing here, but I suppose that Blair is being flip.  But I have
no idea whatsoever why the rather clear-cut, simple and elegant semantics
that C has assigned to pointer arithmetic should be characterized as
"nebulous".  Pointers DO behave as objects, so I don't know why Blair
makes special mention that he wishes they did behave so.

And finally, several people have pointed out why a single object
representing both position and offset is not a good idea, so I have
NO idea what all this yea-yo stuff is about.... maybe it's a bilingual
joke I don't get, a takeoff on "viva yo" or "yeah me" or something.

A show of hands here.  How many think a pointer in c doesn't "behave
as an object"?   Yeah, I thought so...

--
"You'd be surprised... they're all separate little countries down there."
                                        --- Ronald Wilson Reagan
Wayne Throop      <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw