Collective memory

[Richie Hindle]

[Charles]
>     y = x/*p;
> 
> is quite different from:
> 
>     y = x / *p;
> 
> The first way, "/*" will begin a comment...the second way,
> you get the integer "x" divided by the integer pointed to by "p".

[Walter]
> Ouch!! That is one reason code coloring is *important*.

<aol>Me too.</aol>  In the (not too distant) days when syntax colouring
was rare and C would quietly declare undeclared variables as 32-bit
integers, we lost several man days to a piece of code like this:

void function()
{
    short x;    /* Some X thing /*
    short y;    /* Some Y thing */

    functionExpectingPointersToShorts(&x, &y);
}

Dragging us back on topic, this is why languages should only have
single-line comments, and shouldn't let you reference variables before
they're defined.

-- 
Richie Hindle
richie at entrian.com