Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hpfcso!mike
From: mike@hpfcso.HP.COM (Mike McNelly)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Why nested comments not allowed?
Message-ID: <7060002@hpfcso.HP.COM>
Date: 15 Feb 90 16:40:17 GMT
References: <236100027@prism>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Lines: 29


	> I'm just curious to know why nested comments are not allowed in many 
	> languages.

1.  They have limited usefulness.  For most of the occasions where they
are useful, conditional compilation seems to work better.  In C, for
example,

	# if condition1
	...
	#	 if condition2
	...
	#	 endif
	...
	# endif 

seems to fill the void (pardon the pun) pretty well for me.

2.  For those languages with the concept of lines, I find end-of-line
comments to be the least bug inducing form.  Incorrectly terminated
comment blocks, whether in a language that supports comment nesting or
not, seem to be a great source of bugs.  Note that I am NOT saying that
I prefer line oriented languages.

I guess it's pretty much a matter of personal preference on the part of
the language designers.

Mike McNelly
mike%hpfcla@hplabs.hp.com