Why is C syntax so uneasy on the eye?
In its day, was it _really_ designed by snobby programmers to scare away
potential "n00bs"? If so, and after 50+ years of programming research,
why are programming languages still being designed with C's syntax?
These questions drive me insane. Every waking minute...
Nov 14 '05
177  7101 
"Malcolm" <ma*****@55bank .freeserve.co.u k> wrote in message news:<c9******* ***@newsg4.svr. pol.co.uk>... "Dan Pop" <Da*****@cern.c h> wrote in message
More likely, because BASIC is easier to learn than most other
programming languages. It's also well interfaced with other
Microsoft products, like Excel.
If someone is interested in becoming an amateur programmer on
Windows,
I can't imagine anything more suitable for the purpose than VB.
I'm a BASIC implementer myself, so I wouldn't say anything against the
language. I'd say that the main strength of BASIC is that it is so easy to
write an interpreter - obviously that is now irrelevant to a company with
the resources of Microsoft. That's why it was included on all the 80s
vintage microcomputers, and why I learnt it as my first programming
language.
It's also possible to write an interpreter using very little memory.
Which can be difficult for other languages.
Dan Pop wrote: "Arthur J. O'Dwyer" <aj*@nospam.and rew.cmu.edu> writes: On Thu, 3 Jun 2004, Dan Pop wrote:
[re: hard tabs] A typical example is vi, which "optimises" the storage of the
saved text by replacing multiple spaces by HTs according to
the ts variable setting. Since I have found no portable way
of disabling this feature, I'm setting ts to 100 in my .exrc.
I'm sure you've thought of this, but what happens if you set
ts to 0? I would expect either that it would disable the
"feature" altogether, or that you'd get an error from vi.
The latter. vi's response to "set ts=0":
Argument must be positive: ts=0
What an ugly mechanism. Does that also apply to VIM? I have
sometimes considered installing VIM just to have my editing habits
portable, but that is too big a penalty to pay.
--
fix (vb.): 1. to paper over, obscure, hide from public view; 2.
to work around, in a way that produces unintended consequences
that are worse than the original problem. Usage: "Windows ME
fixes many of the shortcomings of Windows 98 SE". - Hutchison
"Mike" <no***@hotmail. com> wrote in message
news:#y******** ******@tk2msftn gp13.phx.gbl... >foo = lambda x, y: [str (i+j) for (i,j) in zip(x,y)]
>
>I don't understand, how several dozens lines of code can be
>better than ONE line of code in non-esoteric language.
As you said, it's not very clear ;-) Actually, you'll have to define
"better" before you're qualified to offer an opinion.
What is the reason to have syntax that is clearer-per-line, if it
requires to write several times more lines of code?
The functional versional would be compact and neat, but almost certainly
slower to exectue; the imperative version would be bigger, uglier, but
most probably faster. No one can claim that one is better than another, as it
completely depends on what you are trying to achieve.
I agree with you, but the discussion is about _clear_ syntaxes.
Ivan.
On Fri, 4 Jun 2004, CBFalconer wrote:
C>Dan Pop wrote:
C>> "Arthur J. O'Dwyer" <aj*@nospam.and rew.cmu.edu> writes:
C>>> On Thu, 3 Jun 2004, Dan Pop wrote:
C>>>>
C>>> [re: hard tabs]
C>>>> A typical example is vi, which "optimises" the storage of the
C>>>> saved text by replacing multiple spaces by HTs according to
C>>>> the ts variable setting. Since I have found no portable way
C>>>> of disabling this feature, I'm setting ts to 100 in my .exrc.
C>>>
C>>> I'm sure you've thought of this, but what happens if you set
C>>> ts to 0? I would expect either that it would disable the
C>>> "feature" altogether, or that you'd get an error from vi.
C>>
C>> The latter. vi's response to "set ts=0":
C>>
C>> Argument must be positive: ts=0
C>
C>What an ugly mechanism. Does that also apply to VIM? I have
C>sometimes considered installing VIM just to have my editing habits
C>portable, but that is too big a penalty to pay.
I use nvi for ages and have never seen such 'optimisation' there. And I
used it even on Win3.11.
harti
In article <c9**********@s unnews.cern.ch> Da*****@cern.ch (Dan Pop) writes: On Thu, 3 Jun 2004, Dan Pop wrote:
[re: hard tabs] A typical example is vi, which "optimises" the storage of the
saved text by replacing multiple spaces by HTs according to the ts
variable setting. Since I have found no portable way of disabling
this feature, I'm setting ts to 100 in my .exrc.
.... The latter. vi's response to "set ts=0":
Argument must be positive: ts=0
Which 'vi' is that? None of the two apply to 'vi' on Solaris, so I
expect it is something that some poor soul thought useful and implented
on some particular system.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/
In <sl************ ****@ID-227112.user.uni-berlin.de> Sam Dennis <sa*@malfunctio n.screaming.net > writes: Dan Pop wrote: A typical example is vi, which "optimises" the storage of the saved
text by replacing multiple spaces by HTs according to the ts variable
setting. Since I have found no portable way of disabling this
^^^^^^^^ feature, I'm setting ts to 100 in my .exrc.
Is there a reason why you can't use, say, VIM, which doesn't have this
problem and has an 'expandtab' option and :retab for your convenience?
Which part of "portable" was too difficult for you to understand?
I like to have a solution that works with whatever I get under the name
of "vi", rather than being tied to a certain vi implementation.
Dan
--
Dan Pop
DESY Zeuthen, RZ group
Email: Da*****@ifh.de
In <Hy*******@cwi. nl> "Dik T. Winter" <Di********@cwi .nl> writes: In article <c9**********@s unnews.cern.ch> Da*****@cern.ch (Dan Pop) writes:On Thu, 3 Jun 2004, Dan Pop wrote:
[re: hard tabs]
> A typical example is vi, which "optimises" the storage of the
> saved text by replacing multiple spaces by HTs according to the ts
> variable setting. Since I have found no portable way of disabling
> this feature, I'm setting ts to 100 in my .exrc.
... The latter. vi's response to "set ts=0":
Argument must be positive: ts=0
Which 'vi' is that? None of the two apply to 'vi' on Solaris, so I
expect it is something that some poor soul thought useful and implented
on some particular system.
It's not on some particular system but on some very popular vi
implementation: vim, the default vi on most (if not all) Linux
distributions. And, as I've said, I was interested in something that
works *everywhere* there is a vi implementations .
Dan
--
Dan Pop
DESY Zeuthen, RZ group
Email: Da*****@ifh.de
In article <c9*********@su nnews.cern.ch> Da*****@cern.ch (Dan Pop) writes: In <Hy*******@cwi. nl> "Dik T. Winter" <Di********@cwi .nl> writes:In article <c9**********@s unnews.cern.ch> Da*****@cern.ch (Dan Pop) writes: >On Thu, 3 Jun 2004, Dan Pop wrote:
>[re: hard tabs]
>> A typical example is vi, which "optimises" the storage of the
>> saved text by replacing multiple spaces by HTs according to the ts
>> variable setting. Since I have found no portable way of disabling
>> this feature, I'm setting ts to 100 in my .exrc.
... The latter. vi's response to "set ts=0":
Argument must be positive: ts=0
Which 'vi' is that? None of the two apply to 'vi' on Solaris, so I
expect it is something that some poor soul thought useful and implented
on some particular system.
It's not on some particular system but on some very popular vi
implementation: vim, the default vi on most (if not all) Linux
distributions. And, as I've said, I was interested in something that
works *everywhere* there is a vi implementations .
Well, the implementation that came with the version of Linux (Fedora) I am
using does indeed disallow ts=0. But it does *not* optimise storage by
replacing multiple spaces by HTs. Just checked vim on Suse, also did not
do that. Also vim on my home machine (a Mac running MacOS) does not perform
that optimisation. Assuming that all vim's are created equal is wrong.
(But I suspect that you are using some obscure option that forces this
feature.)
--
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/
> 2. Even if you don't, some text processing utilities may do it behind your
back. A typical example is vi, which "optimises" the storage of the
saved text by replacing multiple spaces by HTs according to the ts
variable setting. Since I have found no portable way of disabling this
feature, I'm setting ts to 100 in my .exrc.
I've never seen any way of preventing vi from doing this,
for vim however use expandtab in .vimrc
"second best solution" have ts=sw=x in .exrc,
have expandtab and source .exrc in .vimrc.
Thus tab free files with indentation as selected by you is
obtainable for files under your control -
still this might leave indentation a mess in files received from
elsewhere :-)
In <Hy********@cwi .nl> "Dik T. Winter" <Di********@cwi .nl> writes: In article <c9*********@su nnews.cern.ch> Da*****@cern.ch (Dan Pop) writes: In <Hy*******@cwi. nl> "Dik T. Winter" <Di********@cwi .nl> writes:In article <c9**********@s unnews.cern.ch> Da*****@cern.ch (Dan Pop) writes:
> >On Thu, 3 Jun 2004, Dan Pop wrote:
> >[re: hard tabs]
> >> A typical example is vi, which "optimises" the storage of the
> >> saved text by replacing multiple spaces by HTs according to the ts
> >> variable setting. Since I have found no portable way of disabling
> >> this feature, I'm setting ts to 100 in my .exrc.
...
> The latter. vi's response to "set ts=0":
>
> Argument must be positive: ts=0
Which 'vi' is that? None of the two apply to 'vi' on Solaris, so I
expect it is something that some poor soul thought useful and implented
on some particular system.
It's not on some particular system but on some very popular vi
implementation: vim, the default vi on most (if not all) Linux
distributions. And, as I've said, I was interested in something that
works *everywhere* there is a vi implementations .
Well, the implementation that came with the version of Linux (Fedora) I am
using does indeed disallow ts=0. But it does *not* optimise storage by
replacing multiple spaces by HTs. Just checked vim on Suse, also did not
do that. Also vim on my home machine (a Mac running MacOS) does not perform
that optimisation. Assuming that all vim's are created equal is wrong.
(But I suspect that you are using some obscure option that forces this
feature.)
You're still not getting it. If no vi ever replaced my spaces by tabs
I wouldn't have searched a solution to the problem in the first place.
I don't remember which vi flavour did that, but I do remember that setting
ts to 0 didn't work and, as I've already explained, even if it worked,
it wouldn't have been a satisfactory solution.
Dan
--
Dan Pop
DESY Zeuthen, RZ group
Email: Da*****@ifh.de This thread has been closed and replies have been disabled. Please start a new discussion. Similar topics | |
by: mike420 |
last post by:
I think everyone who used Python will agree that its syntax is
the best thing going for it. It is very readable and easy
for everyone to learn. But, Python does not a have very good
macro capabilities, unfortunately. I'd like to know if it may
be possible to add a powerful macro system to Python, while
keeping its amazing syntax, and if it could be possible to
add Pythonistic syntax to Lisp or Scheme, while keeping all
of the...
|
by: Tuang |
last post by:
I'm checking out Python as a candidate for replacing Perl as my "Swiss
Army knife" tool. The longer I can remember the syntax for performing
a task, the more likely I am to use it on the spot if the need arises.
If I have to go off and look it up, as I increasingly have to do with
Perl's ever hairier syntax, I'm more likely to just skip it, making me
even less likely to remember the syntax the next time.
So I hear that Python is easier...
|
by: Sandy Norton |
last post by:
If we are going to be stuck with @decorators for 2.4, then how about
using blocks and indentation to elminate repetition and increase
readability:
Example 1
---------
class Klass:
def __init__(self, name):
|
by: George Sakkis |
last post by:
I'm sure there must have been a past thread about this topic but I don't know how to find it: How
about extending the "for <X> in" syntax so that X can include default arguments ? This would be very
useful for list/generator comprehensions, for example being able to write something like:
instead of the less elegant explicit loop version that has to check for the length of each sequence.
What do you think ?
George
|
by: Carter Smith |
last post by:
http://www.icarusindie.com/Literature/ebooks/
Rather than advocating wasting money on expensive books for beginners,
here's my collection
of ebooks that have been made freely available on-line by their authors.
There are lots of them out there but this selection cuts out the junk.
If you know of any other good books that are freely available please post a
link to them here and I'll consider adding them to the site.
| | |
by: Nicolas Fleury |
last post by:
Hi everyone, I would to know what do you think of this PEP. Any comment
welcomed (even about English mistakes).
PEP: XXX
Title: Specialization Syntax
Version: $Revision: 1.10 $
Last-Modified: $Date: 2003/09/22 04:51:49 $
Author: Nicolas Fleury <nidoizo at gmail.com>
Status: Draft
Type: Standards Track
|
by: Jeremy Yallop |
last post by:
Looking over some code I came across a line like this
if isalnum((unsigned char)c) {
which was accepted by the compiler without complaint. Should the
compiler have issued a diagnostic in this case? (I think it's not
required to, but I'd like confirmation).
Jeremy.
|
by: Bob hotmail.com> |
last post by:
Everyone
I have been spending weeks looking on the web for a good tutorial on how to use regular expressions and other methods to satisfy my craving for learning how to do FAST c-style syntax highlighting in C# but I have yet to find anything useful
I know there are people at MS that know this stuff like the front of their hand and I know there are many people out on the web that are proficient in doing this as well but it seems nobody...
|
by: Manuel |
last post by:
I'm trying to compile glut 3.7.6 (dowbloaded from official site)using
devc++.
So I've imported the glut32.dsp into devc++, included manually some
headers, and start to compile.
It return a very strange error. In your experience, where I should
looking to find the real error? Surely the sintax of glut is correct...
gcc.exe -c glut_bitmap.c -o glut_bitmap.o -I"C:/Dev-Cpp/include"
-I"../../include" -D__GNUWIN32__ -W -DWIN32 -DNDEBUG...
|
by: marktang |
last post by:
ONU (Optical Network Unit) is one of the key components for providing high-speed Internet services. Its primary function is to act as an endpoint device located at the user's premises. However, people are often confused as to whether an ONU can Work As a Router. In this blog post, we’ll explore What is ONU, What Is Router, ONU & Router’s main usage, and What is the difference between ONU and Router. Let’s take a closer look !
Part I. Meaning of...
|
by: Oralloy |
last post by:
Hello folks,
I am unable to find appropriate documentation on the type promotion of bit-fields when using the generalised comparison operator "<=>".
The problem is that using the GNU compilers, it seems that the internal comparison operator "<=>" tries to promote arguments from unsigned to signed.
This is as boiled down as I can make it.
Here is my compilation command:
g++-12 -std=c++20 -Wnarrowing bit_field.cpp
Here is the code in...
| | |
by: Hystou |
last post by:
Overview:
Windows 11 and 10 have less user interface control over operating system update behaviour than previous versions of Windows. In Windows 11 and 10, there is no way to turn off the Windows Update option using the Control Panel or Settings app; it automatically checks for updates and installs any it finds, whether you like it or not. For most users, this new feature is actually very convenient. If you want to control the update process,...
|
by: tracyyun |
last post by:
Dear forum friends,
With the development of smart home technology, a variety of wireless communication protocols have appeared on the market, such as Zigbee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc. Each protocol has its own unique characteristics and advantages, but as a user who is planning to build a smart home system, I am a bit confused by the choice of these technologies. I'm particularly interested in Zigbee because I've heard it does some...
|
by: agi2029 |
last post by:
Let's talk about the concept of autonomous AI software engineers and no-code agents. These AIs are designed to manage the entire lifecycle of a software development project—planning, coding, testing, and deployment—without human intervention. Imagine an AI that can take a project description, break it down, write the code, debug it, and then launch it, all on its own....
Now, this would greatly impact the work of software developers. The idea...
|
by: conductexam |
last post by:
I have .net C# application in which I am extracting data from word file and save it in database particularly. To store word all data as it is I am converting the whole word file firstly in HTML and then checking html paragraph one by one.
At the time of converting from word file to html my equations which are in the word document file was convert into image.
Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.ActiveDocument.Select();...
|
by: TSSRALBI |
last post by:
Hello
I'm a network technician in training and I need your help.
I am currently learning how to create and manage the different types of VPNs and I have a question about LAN-to-LAN VPNs.
The last exercise I practiced was to create a LAN-to-LAN VPN between two Pfsense firewalls, by using IPSEC protocols.
I succeeded, with both firewalls in the same network. But I'm wondering if it's possible to do the same thing, with 2 Pfsense firewalls...
|
by: 6302768590 |
last post by:
Hai team
i want code for transfer the data from one system to another through IP address by using C# our system has to for every 5mins then we have to update the data what the data is updated we have to send another system
| | |
by: muto222 |
last post by:
How can i add a mobile payment intergratation into php mysql website.
| |
