#define OR ||

[Chuck Phillips]

On 29 Jan 90 19:27:27 GMT,
dmocsny at uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny) said:

daniel> In article <33948 at ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> jwl at ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (James Wilbur Lewis) writes:
>In article <1922 at gmdzi.UUCP> wittig at gmdzi.UUCP (Georg Wittig) writes:
>-		if (n < MAX   AND_THEN   a[n] > b.k)
>-
>-	is *not* irritating to read and maintain. It explicitly says what was
>-	intended by the programmer.

>Irritation is in the mind of the maintainer!  YOU might like it, but believe
>me, if I ran across code like this I'd be tempted to seize a heavy blunt 
>object and track down the author!

daniel> ...
daniel> The C preprocessor has no problem looking at #define's and transforming
daniel> the following code back into standard C. So what is wrong with having
daniel> a tool that de-customizes programmer A's syntax back into a form
daniel> pleasing to programmer B? ...

Nothing so long as those creating their own language via the pre-processor
_actually provide_ a de-customizer to those who will maintain the code.  (No,
the preprocessor itself is _not_ an acceptable substitute, because of
constants, etc.)  How many macro manglers out there have been considerate
enough to provide such a tool?  How many have taken the effort to ensure that
the output always compiles _identically_ to the mangled version?  Raise your
hands.  Ah, congratulations to the both of you.  :-)
--
		Chuck Phillips -- chuckp%ncr-fc.FtCollins.NCR.COM
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