From:	"John M. Aldrich" <fighteer AT cs DOT com>
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject:	Re: trouble compiling c++
Date:	Wed, 25 Jun 1997 19:28:05 +0000
Organization:	Two pounds of chaos and a pinch of salt
Lines:	56
Message-ID:	<33B17145.2801@cs.com>
References:	<199706241043 DOT KAA12868 AT mx2 DOT rmplc DOT co DOT uk> <33B02753 DOT 6FC AT cs DOT com>
Reply-To:	fighteer AT cs DOT com
NNTP-Posting-Host:	ppp204.cs.com
Mime-Version:	1.0
To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway:	from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp

For those of you who angrily emailed me over the below post, threatening
to do such things as repudiate C, I apologize for sounding insulting in
my reply.  Perhaps I merely explained myself poorly.

My problem is the same one I have with people who try to define pi as
3.0, make water run uphill, and convert me to their religions; it's
wasted effort against rules that one has to live with.  Computers are
not as intelligent as we; they can't yet guess what we mean without
help.  Even languages meant to sound like English (eg, Smalltalk)
require precise logical and grammatical rules.

It can't be all that difficult to name your programs correctly.  I fail
to see the benefit of having a C file named 'glorp.txt', or a Pascal
file named 'my.fil'.  Filename extensions were invented so that you can
tell your files apart _without_ having to look inside first.  I'm sure
that those who complain about slow gcc compilation times would love to
wait an extra minute while the compiler tries to figure out what
language they were writing because they were too lazy to give their
files valid names.

	There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

I will conclude this post by reminding you that if you think DJGPP would
benefit from a parser that can tell C from C++ by reading it, go ahead
and write one!  Don't complain about things being the way they are
unless you're willing to help change them.

Further idiotic email will be ignored.  Give me a break, people.

John M. Aldrich wrote:
> 
> Liam wrote:
> >
> > Art S. Kagel <kagel AT ns1 DOT bloomberg DOT com> wrote:
> >
> > > parser does not know what to do with it. You probably should have called
> > > the file hello.cc.
> > Can't it tell the difference between C and C++ code
> > with out relying on the extension of a file?
> 
> I have two questions:
> 
> How?
> 
> Why?
> 
> Feel free to ponder them at your leisure.  In your copious spare time,
> name your files correctly.

-- 
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|      John M. Aldrich       | "It may be better to be a live jackal|
|       aka Fighteer I       | than a dead lion, but it is better   |
|   mailto:fighteer AT cs DOT com   | still to be a live lion."            |
| http://www.cs.com/fighteer |                - Lazarus Long        |
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