Doubts about pointers

[Richard Heathfield]

santosh said:

And another major problem [of Turbo C] is that you are pretty
much forced to use Windows.

Not at all! You can use MS-DOS instead! (And I do, sometimes.)

But yes, that's a pretty serious drawback.

I agree that it's a marvellous piece of programming, but then so were
many DOS/CP-M programs of that era.

Rather like the pyramids. Have we *really* lost the techniques? Or are we
just too lazy to use them?

 

[santosh]

santosh said:

And another major problem [of Turbo C] is that you are pretty
much forced to use Windows.

Not at all! You can use MS-DOS instead! (And I do, sometimes.)

But yes, that's a pretty serious drawback.

I agree that it's a marvellous piece of programming, but then so were
many DOS/CP-M programs of that era.

Rather like the pyramids. Have we *really* lost the techniques? Or are
we just too lazy to use them?

I think we haven't lost the technique so much as the environments that
encouraged them.

Today we have huge operating systems, enormous APIs, innumerable
libraries, compatibility layers, etc. With DOS you could "talk to the
hardware" when necessary, but today, everthing must be done through
APIs. Also user expectations have grown. It's no longer acceptable to
ask the average user to use the command line. System security of course
is a big push towards more complexity. Can you imagine a DOS system
connected to the internet and allowing arbitrary code execution?

So yes, the techniques are always there but not usable in a general
programming context. Of course the case is different for many embedded
systems and realtime programs.

 

[Anand Hariharan]

Hello friends,

I have a couple of doubts about pointers in C.

I found it interesting that nobody picked on the OP for using /doubts/
where /questions/ would have been more appropriate. Perhaps it has
something to do with his name / the name that he used? After all, it is
not suggestive of any specific nationality.

- Anand

 

[Richard Heathfield]

Anand Hariharan said:

I found it interesting that nobody picked on the OP for using /doubts/
where /questions/ would have been more appropriate. Perhaps it has
something to do with his name / the name that he used? After all, it is
not suggestive of any specific nationality.

I think it's far more likely that people are sick and tired of the subject
after the recent discussion. There are certainly corners of Usenet where
racism thrives, but it doesn't appear to be a major problem in
comp.lang.c.

 

[jacob navia]

Anand Hariharan said:


I think it's far more likely that people are sick and tired of the subject
after the recent discussion. There are certainly corners of Usenet where
racism thrives, but it doesn't appear to be a major problem in
comp.lang.c.

I would agree with this. This crap is just too much!

 

[Anand Hariharan]

Anand Hariharan said:


I think it's far more likely that people are sick and tired of the subject
after the recent discussion.

That is possible.

There are certainly corners of Usenet where racism thrives,

I wasn't accusing c.l.c of racism. "Nationalism" (?) perhaps, but not
racism.

but it doesn't appear to be a major problem in comp.lang.c.

I'll agree to your use of /appear/. It is a great deal about
perception. There is a strong perception (no thanks to Joona
Palaste), that anyone who posts here in l33+ speak or with poor
grammar is an Indian.

- Anand

 

[Richard Heathfield]

Anand Hariharan said:

That is possible.



I wasn't accusing c.l.c of racism. "Nationalism" (?) perhaps, but not
racism.

Weeeeeelllll, I don't think it's that, either. If nationalism were a big
problem here, most of the fighting would be between the stout-hearted,
noble English and the late-for-every-war Yanks, yes? Or perhaps the
stout-hearted, noble English and <insert pretty well any other nation
here, with the possible exception of Portugal>.

I'll agree to your use of /appear/. It is a great deal about
perception. There is a strong perception (no thanks to Joona
Palaste),

Joona Palaste's time of activity in clc overlapped mine by at least a year,
I think - and during that overlap I never got the impression that he was
particularly anti-Indian. It would be a strange pastime for a Finn, would
it not?

that anyone who posts here in l33+ speak or with poor
grammar is an Indian.

Well, I don't have that perception. So-called "l33t5p34K" is not something
I associate with Indians. Rather, I associate it with late-teens,
early-twenties, either not too bright or not very self-confident yet.

Whilst the misuse of "doubt" /does/ appear to be of predominantly Indian
origin, when I read an article with generally poor grammar, I tend to
assume that the writer is either British or Usanian, and poorly schooled.
I have normally found that those for whom English is not their first
language generally take more care over their language use than do "native"
English-speakers.

No, I think the real issue is precision. Computer programming is a task
that comes most easily to those who are accustomed to being precise and to
demanding precision. Deliberate ("l33t") or apparently ignorant ("doubt")
misuse of the language is therefore something that many programmers find
hard to deal with.

Before I ever posted to Usenet, I read around the subject a little, and
discovered that "spelling flames" (and similar crits) are generally
frowned upon, on the principle of "be generous in what you accept, and
strict in what you produce". Over the last decade or so, that advice has
quite possibly saved me several weeks, or even months, of typing time!
(Not to mention even more unpopularity than I seem to be courting at
present.)

Because I espouse the "be generous/be strict" principle, I work quite hard
to ensure that my own use of language on Usenet is correctly spelled, uses
correct grammar, and is as easy to read as is possible, given the
technical nature of many discussions. I don't always succeed, alas - and I
sometimes cringe when seeing a typo in an article I've written, *after*
posting it. Still, nobody's perfect.

 

[Anand Hariharan]

Anand Hariharan said:


Joona Palaste's time of activity in clc overlapped mine by at least a year,
I think - and during that overlap I never got the impression that he was
particularly anti-Indian. It would be a strange pastime for a Finn, would
it not?

I have no idea who Joona Palaste is (not even to the extent that if this
person is a he or a she), let alone suggesting to know the typical Finn's
pastimes.

However, I am suggesting that Joona Palaste, in no small way,
contributed to the perception that I spoke of, above.

Well, I don't have that perception. So-called "l33t5p34K" is not something
I associate with Indians. Rather, I associate it with late-teens,
early-twenties, either not too bright or not very self-confident yet.

Whilst the misuse of "doubt" /does/ appear to be of predominantly Indian
origin

I wouldn't call it "misuse" (as much as I would not consider 'favor' and
other similar words misspelt). I for one, find "doubt" quite acceptable to
be used in a context as "I generally understand this, but there is this one
nagging nitty gritty detail that I don't get". In a manner of speaking,
"doubt" could mean a very specific question.

- Anand

<snipped rest>

 

[Richard Heathfield]

Anand Hariharan said:

I have no idea who Joona Palaste is (not even to the extent that if this
person is a he or a she), let alone suggesting to know the typical Finn's
pastimes.

However, I am suggesting that Joona Palaste, in no small way,
contributed to the perception that I spoke of, above.

Out of curiosity, would you be prepared to share your reasoning and/or
evidence? I have every respect for your contributions to comp.lang.c, but
then I have quite a bit of respect for Joona's contributions, too, and it
seems wrong for me to let such an apparently negative comment about him
pass without at least making an effort to understand why you are making
that comment.

<snip>

 

[ymuntyan]

Keith Thompson said:



I would advocate as many C compilers as possible for beginning C
programmers. Why exclude Turbo C?

Perhaps because it's not an ISO C compiler?

Yevgen

 

[Richard Heathfield]

(e-mail address removed) said:

Perhaps because it's not an ISO C compiler?

<shrug> You're right - it isn't. It's not far off, but there are indeed a
small number of minor conformance issues. I think the only one I've ever
bumped into in real code is the CLOCKS_PER_SEC thing, which is hardly a
showstopper.

 

[Chris McDonald]

Perhaps it's your wording, but for "beginning C programmers" I would
seriously recommend using only a single C compiler, and one that
co-exists well with their preferred operating system (or the one used
for instruction).

Using "as many C compilers as possible", presumably each with different
incantations and interpretations of standards, would only confuse the
learning of the language itself.

 

[Richard Heathfield]

Chris McDonald said:

Perhaps it's your wording, but for "beginning C programmers" I would
seriously recommend using only a single C compiler, and one that
co-exists well with their preferred operating system (or the one used
for instruction).

Using "as many C compilers as possible", presumably each with different
incantations and interpretations of standards, would only confuse the
learning of the language itself.

I don't think it would, if it were done properly.

When I was learning C (and yes, I learned using TC2.01), I was somewhat put
off Microsoft C because my tutor said that "Microsoft C is *weird*". It
isn't, of course. It's just C. But, having spent several weeks learning
what I thought was *the* C language, I was now faced with the apparent
prospect of there being many different Cs, of which I had learned only
one. This was a gross misrepresentation of reality (although, to be fair
to my tutor, ANSI had only just done their thing, and perhaps not everyone
was fully up to speed yet with the implications of a standard C language),
but nevertheless it coloured my perception of C for some years afterwards.

I rather regret not being introduced to multiple compilers during that
time. It would have significantly hastened my nascent understanding of the
idea of a "standard language".

 

[ymuntyan]

(e-mail address removed) said:



<shrug> You're right - it isn't. It's not far off, but there are indeed a
small number of minor conformance issues. I think the only one I've ever
bumped into in real code is the CLOCKS_PER_SEC thing, which is hardly a
showstopper.

Your "I've ever bumped" here sounds like that's
the only non-conformance issue you are aware of,
but it's not. Sadly, it only confirms that you
are advocating Turbo C just because you've done
it and you won't admit you were wrong ("sadly"
part if a joke, yes).

Yevgen

 

[Chris McDonald]

Chris McDonald said:

I don't think it would, if it were done properly.

....

I rather regret not being introduced to multiple compilers during that
time. It would have significantly hastened my nascent understanding of the
idea of a "standard language".

Sorry, but my 25 years (and counting) of teaching languages to 4000+
novice programmers provides me with a different impression of what is
possible. And it's not a matter of doing it "properly", it's a matter
of what is possible given the constraints of the teaching environment.

Today we have 3 primary operating systems (used in the teaching
of undergrads) and a number of possible C compilers (on each OS).
Trying to actually teach a new programming language, in 12 weeks, amidst
the variety of platforms, attendance patterns, declining enrolments,
and declining motivations, can only hope to see success in an environment
where technical distractions are minimized.

Lecturing that "a C compiler's output file may be named with the -o
option, unless you're using the XYZ compiler, where it's the -q option...."
is about as motivating to waivering CS students as "all sulphates are soluble,
except for gold sulphate and ..." was to me as a waivering Chemistry student.

______________________________________________________________________________
Dr Chris McDonald E: (e-mail address removed)
Computer Science & Software Engineering W: http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/~chris
The University of Western Australia, M002 T: +618 6488 2533
Crawley, Western Australia, 6009 F: +618 6488 1089

 

[Richard Heathfield]

(e-mail address removed) said:

Your "I've ever bumped" here sounds like that's
the only non-conformance issue you are aware of,
but it's not.

No, ISTR that one or two other conformance issues exist, albeit hardly
serious ones.

Sadly, it only confirms that you
are advocating Turbo C just because you've done
it and you won't admit you were wrong ("sadly"
part if a joke, yes).

I'm not *advocating* it. I'm just refusing to condemn it out of hand,
that's all. For most purposes, it's fine, and I don't see why people are
making out that it's a heap of junk, when it clearly isn't. If I wanted to
*advocate* an implementation, I'd plump for either Visual Studio 6 or gcc.
But what I actually advocate is not getting too hung up on compilers -
it's better to focus on the language, and not to give a stuff which
compiler is used. If one writes in clc-conforming C, the compiler rarely
if ever matters, any more than the text editor used for writing the source
code matters.

 

[Richard Heathfield]

Chris McDonald said:

Lecturing that "a C compiler's output file may be named with the -o
option, unless you're using the XYZ compiler, where it's the -q
option...." is about as motivating to waivering CS students as "all
sulphates are soluble, except for gold sulphate and ..." was to me as a
waivering Chemistry student.

How do you feel about "use whichever of these compilers you feel
comfortable with, here are the manuals, don't bother reading them, just
refer to them when you get stuck, here are some scripts for compiling with
a selection of compilers, they work like so, easy huh?, and just bear in
mind that I'll be testing your code on several different compilers, so
don't get unwarrantedly chummy with your library of choice"?

 

[Chris McDonald]

Chris McDonald said:

How do you feel about "use whichever of these compilers you feel
comfortable with, here are the manuals, don't bother reading them, just
refer to them when you get stuck, here are some scripts for compiling with
a selection of compilers, they work like so, easy huh?, and just bear in
mind that I'll be testing your code on several different compilers, so
don't get unwarrantedly chummy with your library of choice"?

It's clearly a *long* time since you were in a tertiary education institution,
and most likely that you haven't taught in one for over 10 years!

- How do you feel about over 200 students expecting access to you, as the only
person associated with a unit of studdy, while you're trying to hold
down the other 30 hours per week of research and admin work?

- How do you feel about the requirements that students be fully informed
as to how their work will be assessed at the time that the assessment
is handed out?

- How do you feel about your continued employment prospects being partially
judged by a dissatified and unmotivated student population?

 

[Morris Dovey]

- How do you feel about over 200 students expecting access to you, as the only
person associated with a unit of studdy, while you're trying to hold
down the other 30 hours per week of research and admin work?

- How do you feel about the requirements that students be fully informed
as to how their work will be assessed at the time that the assessment
is handed out?

- How do you feel about your continued employment prospects being partially
judged by a dissatified and unmotivated student population?

I would feel that the education infrastructure was interfering
with the teaching/learning process it is (or should be) intended
to support.

I would feel frustrated - and I would become as "political" as
needed to find and implement methods of relief.

 

[santosh]

Anand Hariharan said:

Out of curiosity, would you be prepared to share your reasoning and/or
evidence? I have every respect for your contributions to comp.lang.c,
but then I have quite a bit of respect for Joona's contributions, too,
and it seems wrong for me to let such an apparently negative comment
about him pass without at least making an effort to understand why you
are making that comment.

<snip>

Maybe he's talking about these set of acrimonious threads?

<http://groups.google.com/group/comp...lang.c&q=Joona+Indians&qt_g=Search+this+group>

Note that Joona Palaste later tendered an apology. I wasn't around at
that time, nor did I read those threads in detail, but of what little I
have seen they seem to be a case of a tempest in a teapot.