Seven Original Sins of K&R (Long)

[Dan Mercer]

In article <1990Oct2.040019.1635 at ccu.umanitoba.ca> salomon at ccu.umanitoba.ca (Dan Salomon) writes:
:In article <sazwbR600Vp6IHhVVV at andrew.cmu.edu> vd09+ at andrew.cmu.edu (Vincent M. Del Vecchio) writes:
:> I don't know about this.  There are (unfortunately) still so many
:> pre-ANSI compilers and so much pre-ANSI code (not to mention code that
:> depends on the existence of the other "sins" that you mentioned) in use
:> that it would be ridiculous for the time being to abandon backward
:> compatibility.
:
:Much more code is going to be written in C than currently exists.
:Should we sacrifice all the code to come for the sake of the existing
:code?
:-- 
:
:Dan Salomon -- salomon at ccu.UManitoba.CA

Regardless of what changes are made to the language there will always
be problems for some in living within the languages limitations.  The
skill of a programmer is in coping with those difficulties.  You
cannot abandon previously written code and expect people to upgrade.
However,  not all the changes proposed would affect previously written
code.  For instance,  implementation of a 

break label;

capability would not affect previously written code.  As for myself,
I am more comfortable using flags (after getting burned by a nasty bug
in PL1 code I wrote breaking out of a label).
-- 

Dan Mercer
Reply-To: mercer at npdiss1.StPaul.NCR.COM (Dan Mercer)
"MAN - the only one word oxymoron in the English Language"