Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!LINDENTHAL.CAE.RI.CMU.EDU!jwb
From: jwb@LINDENTHAL.CAE.RI.CMU.EDU (John Baugh)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: C Ternary Conditional Expression?
Message-ID: <5073@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 26 May 89 20:32:55 GMT
References: <950025@hpclcdb.HP.COM> <6490002@hplsla.HP.COM> <1344@ruuinf.cs.ruu.nl>
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 22

In article <1344@ruuinf.cs.ruu.nl> verwer@ruuinf.cs.ruu.nl (Nico Verwer) 
writes:
[stuff deleted]
>in your program? Personally, I would like to write the above as
>
>      a[ IF index = last_index THEN last_val ELSE f(index) ] := a[ y ] ;
>
>This would extend the IF-statement to conditional expressions, which in my
>view is a higher-level construct than the conditional statement in Pascal,
>because it allows one to write better readable code.

I think this (i.e., a preference for one or the other) is a 
philosophical issue.  Some like to separate "statement-like"
phrases from "expression-like" ones, allowing side-effects 
only in statements.  That is, statements are for changing
state, expressions for computing values from states.  This
way of looking at things actually simplifies correctness
arguments, in particular, non-interference specifications.

[stuff deleted]

John Baugh
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