Machine readable form of K+R.

[David Brooks]

Lars.Wirzenius at f98.n250.z1.FidoNet.Org (Lars Wirzenius) writes:
|> In the Preface (page x in my copy of the second edition, first paragraph),
|> it says:
|> 
|> 	"As before, all examples have been tested directly from the
|> 	text, which is in machine-readable form."
|>
|> I have always
|> assumed that the authors wanted to reduce the suspicions of
|> typographical errors in typeset code, which are all too common in some
|> books.

Me, too.  Or, indeed, of the code being typed in off the top of their
collective head, which is all too common in many environments.

Perhaps the problem is this: in 1978, the idea of book authors using
anything like a word processor was still fairly novel.  By 1988, it was the
default assumption.  Thus, the phrase, "which is in machine-readable form",
copied verbatim from Preface 1 to Preface 2, has acquired undue emphasis
simply by being mentioned.
-- 
David Brooks				dbrooks at osf.org
Systems Engineering, OSF		uunet!osf.org!dbrooks