C's syntax

[Erik Max Francis]

Alex Martelli wrote:

> No.  But the desperate need for warnings to ameliorate
> some of the ill-effects of its tortured syntax, oh yes, it
> most definitely _is_ one of C's weaknesses.

There is no need for amelioration, because what you describe is a novice
error, extremely rarely made by competent C programmers.  If you're so
worried about accidentally invoking that bit of trivial user error, then
there's no need to use weird syntax (always putting the lvalue on the
right-hand side of the comparison) to avoid doing that; you can turn on
a compiler warning.

That's all.  If you _don't_ have that problem, as most C programmers do
not, then you never had an "ill-effect" to "ameliorate" in the first
place, so your complaint about "weaknesses" is moot.

You are doing a fairly good job of misrepresenting what other people are
saying.

> > It's not even C, it's *Microsoft* C. A bastard hybrid child.
> 
> C89 compliant, as far as I've been able to determine.

Microsoft compilers have many compliance problems.  Read comp.lang.c.*
for a few minutes and that will become readily obvious.

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