How often do you read the C standard?

[Flash Gordon]

user923005 wrote:
.... snip ...

Interesting. I conclude that most dyslexics are not obvious,

Of course not. We can't spell Dyslexic so we can't get it tattooed on
our foreheads!

but
may be detected by apparent slowness in making some elementary
decisions. Maybe that 'most' should be 'many'.

I've yet too see anyone other than you decide that Dyslexics might
appear slow at making decisions, elementary or otherwise. As to what
user923005 wrote, plenty of non-dyslexics pull when they should push or
vice-versa, so that would not be very good as a way of detecting Dyslexics.

 

[Tim Rentsch]

[snip]

As a pragmatic matter you putting
in parentheses saves time wasted on minutiae, i.e.,

a -= (b-1);

doesn't raise any "what does that do" responses.

Although I wouldn't try to actively prevent such things,
I wonder what the effect of such practices is on the
software community. It seems to me the profession
would benefit if there were an expectation that every
non-beginning programmer knew the rules for cases
like this one, especially for environments as small
and well-defined as the C language.

 

[Tim Rentsch]

[snip]

As a pragmatic matter you putting
in parentheses saves time wasted on minutiae, i.e.,

a -= (b-1);

doesn't raise any "what does that do" responses.

Although I wouldn't try to actively prevent such things,
I wonder what the effect of such practices is on the
software community.

I opine that the effect is to reduce coding errors and increase
programming productivity.

Yes, and that might very well be the effect. But it would be
nice to do some experiments, at least on a local scale, and get
some actual data. Call me old fashioned, but I believe in the
power of science.

I would not call the C language well defined; rather it is
precisely defined.

I meant "well-defined" in the sense that there is pretty
widespread agreement as to what the definition is, not any
kind of formal statement about how good a definition it is.
So my use of "well-defined" was not well-defined, one might
say.

 

[CBFalconer]

Of course not. We can't spell Dyslexic so we can't get it
tattooed on our foreheads!


I've yet too see anyone other than you decide that Dyslexics
might appear slow at making decisions, elementary or otherwise.
As to what user923005 wrote, plenty of non-dyslexics pull when
they should push or vice-versa, so that would not be very good
as a way of detecting Dyslexics.

Why are you getting upset at my comments? I am not dyslexic,
neither is any of my family, or acquaintances (to my knowledge).
So I have zero experience. I don't expect to classify by reading
forehead tattoes, but it might be worthwhile to know when to make
allowances.

 

[Antoninus Twink]

Why are you getting upset at my comments?

It's amazing how thoughtless, wrong-headed and offensive comments are
able to upset people, isn't it?

I am not dyslexic, neither is any of my family, or acquaintances (to
my knowledge).

Not even your Nazi aunt?

Still, it's good to know that we can add dyslexia to the list of topical
subjects on clc according to the "regulars".

 

[Richard Bos]

I've been thinking about this. I much more likely to read my implementations
standard than I am the ISO standard, because, lets face it, I am willing to
impose a limit on my code of the machines it will run on.

Are you also willing to impose a limit on which version of your compiler
you're willing to use? Five years from now?

Richard

 

[David Thompson]

On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:07:11 -0700 (MST), Han from China

K&R2 or H&S are better for that kind of thing, IMHO. You don't get
any nice precedence table in the Standard, since as we're continually
reminded on this newsgroup, the Standard deals with a context-free
grammar, not the "precedence" of mere mortals.

Subclauses 6.5.* are in descending order of precedence, or as close as
is possible given the two small non-total-orderings, so the table of
contents contains a precedence table. (And the acrord version I have,
on the document version I have, conveniently puts toc-equiv in a
popup, although I realize that isn't universally true.)
And the summary in A.2 (including A.2.1) is in document order,
thus descending precedence.