Amen bro. I always felt that they got added because pascal had something that C didn’t, and yet it really was not the same. I always felt they were a feature that was only partly implemented and if they were not going to be fully typed then just leave them out and use cpp like we had always done before.
Aww shucks; I actually kinda like enums. When creating sequentially numbered constants, they're convenient.
That said, the typing issues I have a lot of sympathy for. For true constants, it's a shame that `const` didn't make it in earlier, though we have it now. Abusing enum to define constants certainly feels like, well, abuse.
- Dan C.
On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 11:05 PM Larry McVoy <
lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
I hate enums. I thought they would be type checked and they are just ints.
I love C but enums suck.
On Sat, Apr 25, 2020 at 12:54:27PM +1000, Rob Pike wrote:
> Another debate at the time was caused by a disagreement between pcc and cc
> regarding enums: are they a type or just a way to declare constant? I
> remember getting annoyed by pcc not letting me declare a constant with an
> enum and use it as an int. I protested to scj and dmr and after some to-ing
> and fro-ing Steve changed pcc to treat them as constants.
>
> Not sure it was the right decision, but C desperately wanted a non-macro
> way to define a constant. I'd probably argue the same way today. The real
> lesson is how propinquity affects progress.
>
> -rbo
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 25, 2020 at 12:51 PM Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The ability to call a function pointer fp with the syntax fp() rather than
> > (*fp)() came rather late, I think at Bjarne's suggestion or example. Pretty
> > sure it was not in v7 C, as you observe.
> >
> > Convenient though the shorthand may be, it always bothered me as
> > inconsistent and misleading. (I am pretty sure I used it sometimes
> > regardless.)
> >
> > -rob
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Apr 25, 2020 at 12:48 PM Adam Thornton <athornton@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> On Apr 24, 2020, at 7:37 PM, Charles Anthony <charles.unix.pro@gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 7:00 PM Adam Thornton <athornton@gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> This doesn???t like the function pointer.
> >>>
> >>
> >>> $ cc -c choparg.c
> >>> choparg.c:11: Call of non-function
> >>>
> >>> Perhaps:
> >>
> >> (*fcn)(arg);
> >>
> >>
> >> We have a winner!
> >>
> >> Also, Kartik, dunno where it is on the net, but if you install a v7
> >> system, /usr/src/cmd/c
> >>
> >> Adam
> >>
> >>
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at mcvoy.com http://www.mcvoy.com/lm
Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual