From: j DOT aldrich6 AT genie DOT com
Message-Id: <199605300518.AA073543507@relay1.geis.com>
Date: Thu, 30 May 96 05:07:00 UTC 0000
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
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Subject: Re: Linking problem

Reply to message 4534148    from FREDEX AT FCSHOM on 05/28/96  2:07PM


>[EDITORIAL-MODE-ON]
>Treating main() as if it were a void function is a bad habit which is
>discussed (complete with flamage) almost weekly in comp.lang.c. It seems
>to be perpetrated by ill-informed high-school and/or college instructors,
>but even more so it is perpetrated by ill-informed authors of poorly
>written books, one of the most notable culprits being Herbert Schildt.

Hehe.  I think I'd enjoy the discussions in comp.lang.c then.  :)  I even had
such a C instructor last semester.  Fortunately, I already knew enough that
I didn't fall for it.  I also dislike intensely the practice of defining main
like this:

main()
{
    ...
};

Sure, not declaring a return type defaults to int, and not declaring any
parameters defaults to void, but is it really THAT much more work to
define "int main( void )"?

I am well aware that that would not work under traditional C.  But the
ANSI spec is so well-rooted that deliberately writing unclear and
unsafe code just to satisfy the few remaining bastions of ignorance
among programmers is just plain silly.

>[EDITORIAL-MODE-OFF]

John  :)