From: hansoft AT geocities DOT com (Hans Bezemer)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp,comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Scripting language library
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 08:49:54 GMT
Organization: HanSoft & Partners
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On 12 Dec 1997 21:38:28 GMT, ulric AT evelin DOT edu DOT stockholm DOT se (Ulric Eriksson)
wrote:

>In horror I grepped the .c files to see if this was actually used
>anywhere. You bet. The first file (4th.c) I looked into contained:
There is nowhere in the standard AFAIK that using the preprocessor in this way
is prohibited. As a matter of fact, it compiles cleanly on a host of platforms.
If you also had a look at the documentation, you would have found that the use
of this "trick" is documented.

Back in 1986 there was even an article on this in Byte. It raised the very same
controversy it could do here. Some claimed that "God writes only one true C" (no
religious thing, just a quote from a letter). I wanted something that could
easily be read and understood, even by newbies. Yes, after 12 years of C
programming I *AM* able to write "one true C". Read the documentation for that. 

>And so on. Here is more entertaining statistics:
>
>evelin:~/4th/source$ grep "void main" *.c | wc  
>     25     185    1208
>
>Any claim that this is the most standard C imaginable is clearly
>exaggerated.
You also counted the examples that are inside the comments of each and every
function/program. If main() doesn't return anything it is allowed IMHO, but
maybe somebody else has more detailled information on this. As far as 4th.c is
concerned, you are right. That is an error. Thank you for pointing this out to
me.

EasyC works on even the most humble C compiler, like HiSoft C on the Sinclair
Spectrum. You may not like it, but in my experience it has made it a lot easier
for newbies to learn C and understand it, e.g.

if (a == b)

vs.

if (a eq b)

This makes it easier for newbies not to fall into a pitfall like:

if (a = b)

A compiler is hard enough to understand as is. If EasyC makes that easier, why
not. If that is a reason for you to discard the package, I'll be happy to put
sed to work and give you a "true" C version. And of course, I'm always
interested in comments that can improve the quality of the package.

Hans



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