why enums arent my favorite C language feature

utzoo!utcsrgv!utcsstat!wagner utzoo!utcsrgv!utcsstat!wagner
Sun Nov 7 10:51:38 AEST 1982


Actually Re: a previous enum article which (fatally) had a
quote in it, and f- got a syntax error trying to overbackslash
it (any collection  of nouns improperly put together without
hyphens can be verbed).

  The fact that lint doesnt (once again) understand the language
that the C compiler does brings us back to a discussion of why
lint isnt an option (perhaps in another pass for small machines)
of the C compiler.  That would keep it in step with the compiler,
even to the level of sharing parse tables.  If you didnt want
the overhead, you could leave the option off.  I find that
false economy, but to each his own.  The only cogent(?)
arguement against this was that it would add to the complexity
and size of the compiler, which I find weak at best.  It 
adds almost nothing to the complexity, and for small machines,
another pass is time, not size.

Michael Wagner, UTCS (decvax!utzoo!utcsstat!wagner)



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