C programming style

[Michael J. Tuciarone]

Awww, c'mon folks.

This whole discussion has become become silly enough  without  it
degenerating  into  flames  concerning  "professionalism"  and so
forth. If you're reading this, someone is sufficiently  convinced
of your qualifications that they gave you a computer account. (Or
at least you know enough not to break things.) If you can *write*
to  the net, you are able to wade through Unix [tm blah blah] do-
cumentation and operate the system and programs...de facto, not a
rank amateur.

Regardless, this is not net.flame. Let's try  to  have  a  little
professional courtesy and keep it clean, ok?

And about "style" and "idiom"...Computer languages are  generally
designed  to  either fit a particular application (e.g. C, Forth,
Ada) or demonstrate a principle (e.g., Pascal, APL, Lisp).  Easy,
easy,  flames  off. The utility of a language is inseparable from
its features and syntax, which in turn are  wholly  dependent  on
the  underlying design concept. With respect to C, the very first
sentence in "The C Programmer's Manual" (you all *do* have a copy
of  K&R,  don't  you?) reads, "C is a general-purpose programming
language which features economy  of  expression,  modern  control
flow and data structures, and a rich set of operators."

Increment and decrement operators, conditional  expressions,  and
returned values from assignment statements are not just a part of
C, they are accepted and preferred usage. One of the  great  vir-
tues  of  C  is its (potential) brevity and elegance; "economy of
expression" is a design goal of the language!  The  conscientious
programmer, like any skilled craftsman, will eschew opaque or in-
comprehensible constructions. But idioms such as:

        char buf[80], *cp = buf;

        while ( (*cp++ = getchar()) != '0 )
                ;

are common, short, and understandable at a glance to the program-
mer. Phrases like the above are the heart of C. I moved to C from
Pascal and never looked back, if only because I could finally fit
the whole function on one screen.

There is, in any language, a certain overhead involved in  learn-
ing  the  language  and its idioms. But all living languages will
develop their own shorthand and common expressions. Good program-
mers,  like users of *any* language, will note the expressions in
common use, and further those that are elegant, simple,  and  ex-
pressive while avoiding the unclear and confusing.

C may never approach Pascal for sheer readability, but the trade-
off  made  in  favor  of brevity and richness of expression seems
well worth the small extra effort invested in learning  to  speak
the language well.

Hoping you're still awake,
Mike Tuciarone
...{hplabs, ucbvax}!atd!tooch at avsdS
Audio/Video Systems Division
Ampex Corporation
"One of the [Allied-]Signal Companies"