C Review

[Brian Gordon]

Sorry to post, by my mailer couldn't grok "To: Peter Steele - Acadia" ...

In article <2313 at brl-adm.ARPA> Peter Steele - Acadia writes:
|I am currently finishing up a new text book on C with a colleague of mine and 
|we just received the last of several technical reviews.  This particular 
|reviewer makes some statements that we find hard to accept. However, we're 
|just two people, so we decided to get some opinions from other C programmers. 
|Below is a list of some his statements. Is this guy for real? Your comments 
|would be greatly appreciated. Incidentally, the text is not an intro text, it 
|assumes the reader has finished a course in Pascal.
|
|"... 95% of all C programmers couldn't give you a good explanation of the 
|term lvalue..."
  I'd put it at 80%, but I believe it is HIGH in the non-academic world.
|"... Switch/case could be classified as rarely used and should be kept till 
|later.
  I don't know where you put it, but is is a "lesser used" control structure.
|"... very few C programmers know much about sizeof..."
  Hard to believe.  Doesn't everyone HAVE to use it, eventually, when dealing
  with arrays and/or structures?
|"... 99%  of  all  professional C  programmers  have no idea what typedef is 
|all about, couldn't care less and probably won't ever need it."
  Maybe the reviewer has never seen a 100,000+ line system?  Or feels that
  a book at this level is not applicable to that size effort?  For a 200 line
  program, typedef is not NEEDED.
|"... 99%  of  all  professional C  programmers  have no idea what the comma 
|operator is all about, couldn't care less and probably won't ever need it."
  Too strong -- but out local coding standard SEVERELY restricts its use
  for fear that it is too hard for a casual maintainer to interpret.
|"... Leave the comma operator altogether. An intro book is no place for 
|obscure and unmaintainable tricks..."
  The reviewer has the same worry about maintainability as the author(s) of our
  coding standard.  On the other hand, why argue FOR incompleteness?
|"... Pointers to functions ... few C programmers understand them or would 
|ever need them..."
  Again, maybe the reviewer has never seen -- or wishes to exclude -- 100,000+ 
  line systems?
|"... a C programmer never needs to know what a byte is..."
  Context dependent statement!  Portable C code can be difficult when you
  make any assumption/requirement on machine characteristics ...

FROM:   Brian G. Gordon, CAE Systems Division of Tektronix, Inc.
UUCP:   tektronix!cae780!gordon [or gordon at cae780.CAE.TEK.COM]