HeathField Strange Ideas!

[Paul]

This guy 'Richard Heathfield' and a few others seem to be dictating
nonsense about the ISO standards etc and sending out the impression that
C is very restricted. For Example: There have been posts made asking for
help on basic things like simple keyboard input routines which are
quickly dismissed to be impossible to do with compliant code.

These people who seem to have the misinterpreted the standards and who
believe they are in place to hinder us have certainly got their ideas
very much wrong.

The standards are on our side and there to help us. I trust most can see
why. If the standards in some way do restrict the C language, I would
suggest that it be more usefull to correct the standards, than to
correct the C language in such a manner to make it less portable. Who
does this guy think he is?

And I have also noted he has tried to copy and enlighten on, the much
respected, Kernighan & Ritchies works. Again who does this guy think he
is?

I find utterly annoying that this person has had a book published
entitled 'C Unleashed'. This title implying that the book will teach a
programmer to write 'go anywhere code'. This persons interpretations of
the standards would infact be more restrictive. How can anyone assume
the content of this book is anything more than shredder food when the
author cannot even understand the simple oxymoron 'portable
restriction'?

 

[Ben Pfaff]

This guy 'Richard Heathfield' and a few others seem to be dictating
nonsense about the ISO standards etc and sending out the impression that
C is very restricted. For Example: There have been posts made asking for
help on basic things like simple keyboard input routines which are
quickly dismissed to be impossible to do with compliant code.

You may be trolling. If not, you would get more to-the-point
responses if you'd give specific quotes from Richard's articles
and point out what you believe to be wrong in them. Usually,
Richard is right.

 

[Default User]

This guy 'Richard Heathfield' and a few others seem to be dictating
nonsense about the ISO standards etc and sending out the impression
that C is very restricted. For Example: There have been posts made
asking for help on basic things like simple keyboard input routines
which are quickly dismissed to be impossible to do with compliant
code.

You are incorrect.



Brian

 

[Malcolm McLean]

This guy 'Richard Heathfield' and a few others seem to be dictating
nonsense about the ISO standards etc and sending out the impression that
C is very restricted. For Example: There have been posts made asking for
help on basic things like simple keyboard input routines which are
quickly dismissed to be impossible to do with compliant code.

Compilers for hosted systems, that is to say PC type computers, always come
with libraries to handle the keybooard and screen. However they are
non-standard. Your Linux curses won't work under most Windows compilers, and
the same goes for Windows conio. Except that if you look hard enough these
two systems are common enough for there to be some workarounds and kludges
so you can actually compile programs for both systems, but it is difficult
and error-prone.

ANSI C offers only stream-based input and output. Great for playing hangman,
but useless for space invaders.

 

[Philip Potter]

This guy 'Richard Heathfield' and a few others seem to be dictating
nonsense about the ISO standards etc and sending out the impression that
C is very restricted. For Example: There have been posts made asking for
help on basic things like simple keyboard input routines which are
quickly dismissed to be impossible to do with compliant code.

These people who seem to have the misinterpreted the standards and who
believe they are in place to hinder us have certainly got their ideas
very much wrong.

Tell me again, because it wasn't clear the first time: in what way was
Richard Heathfield's advice wrong? Be specific; if possible, quote where
the Standard contradicts his advice.

 

[Eric Sosman]

Paul wrote On 08/24/07 17:11,:

This guy 'Richard Heathfield' and a few others seem to be dictating
nonsense about the ISO standards etc and sending out the impression that
C is very restricted. For Example: There have been posts made asking for
help on basic things like simple keyboard input routines which are
quickly dismissed to be impossible to do with compliant code.

These people who seem to have the misinterpreted the standards and who
believe they are in place to hinder us have certainly got their ideas
very much wrong.

The standards are on our side and there to help us. I trust most can see
why. If the standards in some way do restrict the C language, I would
suggest that it be more usefull to correct the standards, than to
correct the C language in such a manner to make it less portable. Who
does this guy think he is?

And I have also noted he has tried to copy and enlighten on, the much
respected, Kernighan & Ritchies works. Again who does this guy think he
is?

I find utterly annoying that this person has had a book published
entitled 'C Unleashed'. This title implying that the book will teach a
programmer to write 'go anywhere code'. This persons interpretations of
the standards would infact be more restrictive. How can anyone assume
the content of this book is anything more than shredder food when the
author cannot even understand the simple oxymoron 'portable
restriction'?

On the assumption that you're not just trolling,
I'll attempt a point-by-point:

Some "simple" keyboard things are indeed not possible
with C's I/O facilities unless they are given help by means
outside the language definition. The task of determining
whether a key has been pressed without actually reading the
character it generates (if any) and blocking the program
until it arrives is beyond C's unaided reach. When R.H. or
anyone else tells you this, you are not being told nonsense.

Your second paragraph is purely opinion, not something
that can be debated on the basis of evidence.

The third paragraph is, I think, the crux of your
difficulty. The Standard is indeed on our side, and the way
it helps us is by putting limits -- "restrictions" -- on
how bizarre an implementation can be and still be "C." You
may not remember the Bad Old Days when everyone with what
he thought was a Good Idea promptly enshrined it in his
compiler and/or his library; it was in those days that the
jest "C combines the power of assembly language with the
portability of assembly language" was coined. It was funny
in a wry sort of way, but the reason it was funny is that
it contained a discernible nugget of truth. When the Standard
came along and decreed that sprintf() would return a character
count and not (as on some implementations) a pointer to the
generated string, this restriction made life easier for us
programmers. When the Standard decreed exactly how the
integer promotions work, instead of leaving them up to the
whim of the implementation, our tools started behaving more
predictably. We could struggle with the problem at hand,
rather than with the implementations.

Your fourth paragraph makes no sense to me; I don't
understand what you are trying to say.

The factual assertion in the fifth paragraph is that
you are annoyed. On the evidence, that seems possible.
Did the content of his "shredder food" annoy you, or are
you just annoyed as a life-style choice?

 

[Ian Collins]

This guy 'Richard Heathfield' and a few others seem to be dictating
nonsense about the ISO standards etc and sending out the impression that
C is very restricted. For Example: There have been posts made asking for
help on basic things like simple keyboard input routines which are
quickly dismissed to be impossible to do with compliant code.

Please provide a counter example in pure standard C, we would all
benefit greatly from this.

These people who seem to have the misinterpreted the standards and who
believe they are in place to hinder us have certainly got their ideas
very much wrong.

Please provide an example of this misinterpretation.

The standards are on our side and there to help us. I trust most can see
why. If the standards in some way do restrict the C language, I would
suggest that it be more usefull to correct the standards, than to
correct the C language in such a manner to make it less portable. Who
does this guy think he is?

Eric's rebuttal of this paragraph says it all.

And I have also noted he has tried to copy and enlighten on, the much
respected, Kernighan & Ritchies works. Again who does this guy think he
is?

Do what?

 

[Al Balmer]

I find utterly annoying that this person has had a book published
entitled 'C Unleashed'.

<OT> I take it your book was rejected by all the publishers? </OT>

Did you have a question about C?

 

[Philip Potter]

Compilers for hosted systems, that is to say PC type computers, always
come with libraries to handle the keybooard and screen. However they are
non-standard.

I'm not normally one to quibble on wording, but I thought a hosted
implementation was a very specific thing: namely, a C implementation
which also provides the C standard library and starts a program with
"int main(void)" or "int main(int, char**)" (and possibly more
restrictions that I don't know about). Nothing to do with PC-like
computers or having a keyboard and mouse.

In fact I've got a C implementation which provides the standard library
functions but is certainly not PC-like and has neither keyboard nor
mouse. stdin and stdout connect to an RS-232 port.

Phil

 

[Keith Thompson]

Who does this guy think he is?

He thinks he's Richard Heathfield. Who does he have to be? And who
the heck are you?

 

[jacob navia]

This guy 'Richard Heathfield' and a few others seem to be dictating
nonsense about the ISO standards etc and sending out the impression that
C is very restricted. For Example: There have been posts made asking for
help on basic things like simple keyboard input routines which are
quickly dismissed to be impossible to do with compliant code.

They are just pedants. Do not worry. Not everyone is like them here.

These people who seem to have the misinterpreted the standards and who
believe they are in place to hinder us have certainly got their ideas
very much wrong.

The standards are on our side and there to help us. I trust most can see
why. If the standards in some way do restrict the C language, I would
suggest that it be more usefull to correct the standards, than to
correct the C language in such a manner to make it less portable. Who
does this guy think he is?

And I have also noted he has tried to copy and enlighten on, the much
respected, Kernighan & Ritchies works. Again who does this guy think he
is?

He think he is the pope, and many people here believe that, maybe
because some people *need* a pope to rely on. Much easier than using
the brain...

I find utterly annoying that this person has had a book published
entitled 'C Unleashed'. This title implying that the book will teach a
programmer to write 'go anywhere code'. This persons interpretations of
the standards would infact be more restrictive. How can anyone assume
the content of this book is anything more than shredder food when the
author cannot even understand the simple oxymoron 'portable
restriction'?

It is a good book, with some bugs as any other book, but in
general useful.

 

[Philip Potter]

They are just pedants. Do not worry. Not everyone is like them here.

But one must maintain a certain amount of pedantry to be sure of
sticking to the C standard and writing portable code. Naturally, it is
not always necessary, possible or desirable to write portable code, but
most of the time it is all three.

The comp.lang.c FAQ, question 19.1 covers a part of this topic.

He think he is the pope, and many people here believe that, maybe
because some people *need* a pope to rely on. Much easier than using
the brain...

I for one do not think Richard Heathfield is the Pope. I don't take what
he says as gospel - in fact, I frequently question him and his advice
when I find aspects of it questionable - sometimes because he makes
mistakes, sometimes because his code style is different from mine.
Nevertheless it is a fact that I have learned huge amounts from him and
his pedantry - quite a bit more than I have learned from his most vocal
critics.

He has my respect because he has earned it.

 

[Ian Collins]

The best pedant I know is a compliant compiler in compliant mode...

But one must maintain a certain amount of pedantry to be sure of
sticking to the C standard and writing portable code. Naturally, it is
not always necessary, possible or desirable to write portable code, but
most of the time it is all three.

I'm not a pedant, I tend to be lazy and slack, so I always make sure I
have at least one pedantic developer in my team. Without pedantic
developers and engineers we wouldn't have standards and the world as we
know it would fall apart in short order.

I for one do not think Richard Heathfield is the Pope. I don't take what
he says as gospel - in fact, I frequently question him and his advice
when I find aspects of it questionable - sometimes because he makes
mistakes, sometimes because his code style is different from mine.
Nevertheless it is a fact that I have learned huge amounts from him and
his pedantry - quite a bit more than I have learned from his most vocal
critics.

He has my respect because he has earned it.

+1 to the above form me.

 

[pete]

This guy 'Richard Heathfield' and a few others seem to be dictating
nonsense about the ISO standards etc
and sending out the impression that C is very restricted.
For Example: There have been posts made asking for
help on basic things like simple keyboard input routines which are
quickly dismissed to be impossible to do with compliant code.

I hate that guy.
Every time he sees a mistake in one of my posts,
he corrects it!
And those few others, are no better.

These people who seem to have the misinterpreted the standards
and who believe they are in place to hinder us
have certainly got their ideas very much wrong.

It's wrong because it's like against society.
It's wrong because everybody has the right to live
and be happy without being tolchocked and knifed.

 

[Default User]

jacob navia wrote:

I for one do not think Richard Heathfield is the Pope.

Certainly not. For instance, I think RH argues with that moron Navia
too much.




Brian

 

[Christopher Benson-Manica]

This guy 'Richard Heathfield' and a few others seem to be dictating
nonsense about the ISO standards

Sounds like someone has called gets() one too many times. That would
explain the garbage output.

They are just pedants. Do not worry. Not everyone is like them here.

True enough; some people are wrong much more often.

He think he is the pope, and many people here believe that, maybe
because some people *need* a pope to rely on. Much easier than using
the brain...

I suspect that Mr. Heathfield has far too much self-respect to ever
accuse himself of being the Pope.

 

[jaysome]

This guy 'Richard Heathfield' and a few others seem to be dictating
nonsense about the ISO standards etc and sending out the impression that
C is very restricted. For Example: There have been posts made asking for
help on basic things like simple keyboard input routines which are
quickly dismissed to be impossible to do with compliant code.

Saying that someone who "seems" to be sending out the impression that
C is very restricted and by doing so implies they are dictating
nonsense about the ISO standards "seems" to me a very subjective
opinion. Don't you agree? Put another way: Don't you "seem" to agree?
I certainly agree.

These people who seem to have the misinterpreted the standards and who
believe they are in place to hinder us have certainly got their ideas
very much wrong.

Again, you say that these people "seem" to have the [sic]
misinterpreted the standards. I certainly agree that they did
interpret them correctly (and if they did not, other respectable
members here in this newsgroup corrected them, and in most if not all
cases the misinterpreter responded with a sheepish reply that invoked
images of a tail between the legs--we're all human).

The standards are on our side and there to help us. I trust most can see
why. If the standards in some way do restrict the C language, I would
suggest that it be more usefull to correct the standards, than to
correct the C language in such a manner to make it less portable. Who
does this guy think he is?

The standards are indeed on our side. That's why they allow you to do
silly stuff like:

int i = 0;
i = i++;

and for the implementation to define functions like:

int _kbhit( void );

And I have also noted he has tried to copy and enlighten on, the much
respected, Kernighan & Ritchies works. Again who does this guy think he
is?

He's not the only one. K&R is considered a respected work by most if
not all C afficionados.

I find utterly annoying that this person has had a book published
entitled 'C Unleashed'. This title implying that the book will teach a
programmer to write 'go anywhere code'. This persons interpretations of
the standards would infact be more restrictive. How can anyone assume
the content of this book is anything more than shredder food when the
author cannot even understand the simple oxymoron 'portable
restriction'?

My copy of "C Unleashed" (note the C-style quotations, not the
MATLAB-style ones) says or notes nothing whatsoever about teaching a
programmer to write "go anywhere code" (again, note the C-style
quotations, not the MATLAB-style ones). If your copy says such a
thing, can you please tell us what page number it is cited on?

I've learned a lot from Richard's posts. And I know that if I am ever
in a C programmer interview situation and the interviewer asks me a
question like "What is a good way of furthering you knowledge about
Standard C?", and one of the choices is "Do a Google newsgroups search
for "Richard Heathfield" in comp.lang.c, I know what the correct
answer is. And, of course, YMMV :^)

Best regards

 

[Malcolm McLean]

Philip Potter wrote:
I'm not a pedant, I tend to be lazy and slack, so I always make sure I
have at least one pedantic developer in my team. Without pedantic
developers and engineers we wouldn't have standards and the world as we
know it would fall apart in short order.

The problem is that pedantry can blind you to real issues.

I don't think Richard Heathfield has really taken on board my point about
the language-destroying potential of size_t and allied types. They are in
the standard as the correct way to hold a size and pointer difference,
therefore they are right. To a point, he is correct, but no-one is going to
use a language where an arbitrary array index is called size_t. It seize_t's
everything up.

The problem then is that the guy who can see ahead is accused of not knowing
the standard and his works condemned. Heathfield is more a Prefect for the
Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith than Pope, which is OK, as long
the committee is infallible. But it is not, it's decrees are widely ignored
as absurd, its constructs deprecated by the likes of Microsoft, even Denis
Ritchie has spoken out against its const, though he did get his way on
noalias.

However that doesn't mean he is not a respected and valued member of the
group. He is.

 

[Army1987]

The problem is that pedantry can blind you to real issues.

I don't think Richard Heathfield has really taken on board my point about
the language-destroying potential of size_t and allied types. They are in
the standard as the correct way to hold a size and pointer difference,
therefore they are right. To a point, he is correct, but no-one is going to
use a language where an arbitrary array index is called size_t. It seize_t's
everything up.

What on earth are you speaking about? You can index an array with
whatever integral value you like most.

 

[Philip Potter]

The problem is that pedantry can blind you to real issues.

I don't think Richard Heathfield has really taken on board my point
about the language-destroying potential of size_t and allied types. They
are in the standard as the correct way to hold a size and pointer
difference, therefore they are right. To a point, he is correct, but
no-one is going to use a language where an arbitrary array index is
called size_t. It seize_t's everything up.

Can you give an example of the problem? I'm confused as to what your
issue is.

The problem then is that the guy who can see ahead is accused of not
knowing the standard and his works condemned. Heathfield is more a
Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith than Pope,
which is OK, as long the committee is infallible. But it is not, it's
decrees are widely ignored as absurd, its constructs deprecated by the
likes of Microsoft, even Denis Ritchie has spoken out against its const,
though he did get his way on noalias.

Having read http://www.lysator.liu.se/c/dmr-on-noalias.html, it seems
like he got his way on const, too.

Phil