return expr and Decus-C

Doug Gwyn gwyn at brl-vgr.ARPA
Tue May 15 01:05:15 AEST 1984


Sorry, folks, but the C language gives me no option on
	if ( cond ) stmt
or
	while ( cond ) stmt
It DOES give me the choice of whether to write
	return expr;
or
	return( expr );
Given the choice, I vote against the redundant parentheses.  If the
rest of the language syntax were more like Algol-68 or Djikstra's
then I would be happier, but short of using Bourne's macros I have
no choice about that.

C definitely overworks its special characters and keywords, and
this adversely affects readability.

(Nevertheless I would rather use C than any of the major contenders,
but within its syntax one should still adopt as readable a style as the
language permits.)



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