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microsoft visual c++

paz
Hi,

Does anybody know how to start new C project with microsoft visual c++?

I've created a file, but Tools-Run is inActive.

How can I make it Active?

Dec 1 '06 #1
56 2747
paz
Build-compile is inActive too :-(

I created new project and add my file to it, but it didn't help.
paz ëúá:
Hi,

Does anybody know how to start new C project with microsoft visual c++?

I've created a file, but Tools-Run is inActive.

How can I make it Active?
Dec 1 '06 #2
paz said:
Hi,

Does anybody know how to start new C project with microsoft visual c++?
This question is not topical in comp.lang.c BUT personally, I think it
should be. K&R have this to say on the matter:

"This is the big hurdle; to leap over it you have to be able to create the
program text somewhere, compile it successfully, load it, run it, and find
out where your output went. With these mechanical details mastered,
everything else is comparatively easy."

The niceties of Visual Studio are of course nothing to do with C itself, and
so normally I'd recommend that you find a Microsoft site. But frankly, if I
do that, you'll probably end up becoming a Microsofty, and I wouldn't wish
that on anyone.

So - here is the URL of a quick guide to starting a new C project in Visual
Studio (covers versions 5 and 6). If you have an earlier or later version
of Visual Studio, the basic procedure is typically much the same, but
things are in different places, that's all.

http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/windows/vcprj.php

Now that I've said all that, I must apologise to my fellow regular
contributors to this group for replying to an off-topic question with an
answer that is not a redirection to another group. I hope, however, that
they will reflect upon the possibility that "paz" may one day become an
world-class expert in ISO C programming as a result of not being sent off
to a Microsoft group...

--
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999
http://www.cpax.org.uk
email: rjh at the above domain, - www.
Dec 1 '06 #3
Richard Heathfield wrote:
>
paz said:
Hi,

Does anybody know how to start new C project
with microsoft visual c++?
>
http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/windows/vcprj.php

Now that I've said all that, I must apologise to my fellow regular
contributors to this group for replying
to an off-topic question with an
answer that is not a redirection to another group.
I do it differently:

I open any .c or .h file
which happens to already be in the bin directory,
which is where my compiler looks for source code.

I do a "Save as..." which is an option under "File"
and which copies the file under a new name like "new.c"

I rewrite the file and then under "Build"
I select "Compile new.c".

At this point the compiler asks me if I want to create a
new workspace and I reply "Yes".

Then under "Project", I click "Settings"
and under the "C/C++" tab, I raise the warning level to 4.

Then under "File" I select "Save Workspace".

When I want to add additional c files to the project,
then while the project is still open,
I open additional c files under "File".

I go to "Build" again and when I try to compile the additional
C files, the compiler gives me the option to add the file
to the project and I select "Yes".

I open the programs header files for viewing,
but I never add them to the project.

.... and that's how I wrote and compiled e_driver.c

http://www.mindspring.com/~pfilandr/C/e_driver/

--
pete
Dec 1 '06 #4
Richard Heathfield wrote:
paz said:

>Hi,

Does anybody know how to start new C project with microsoft visual c++?


This question is not topical in comp.lang.c BUT personally, I think it
should be. K&R have this to say on the matter:

"This is the big hurdle; to leap over it you have to be able to create the
program text somewhere, compile it successfully, load it, run it, and find
out where your output went. With these mechanical details mastered,
everything else is comparatively easy."

The niceties of Visual Studio are of course nothing to do with C itself, and
so normally I'd recommend that you find a Microsoft site. But frankly, if I
do that, you'll probably end up becoming a Microsofty, and I wouldn't wish
that on anyone.

So - here is the URL of a quick guide to starting a new C project in Visual
Studio (covers versions 5 and 6). If you have an earlier or later version
of Visual Studio, the basic procedure is typically much the same, but
things are in different places, that's all.

http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/windows/vcprj.php

Now that I've said all that, I must apologise to my fellow regular
contributors to this group for replying to an off-topic question with an
answer that is not a redirection to another group. I hope, however, that
they will reflect upon the possibility that "paz" may one day become an
world-class expert in ISO C programming as a result of not being sent off
to a Microsoft group...

Yes. Do not worry, the other members of this group will never cry
"off topic" when heathfield does something like this. It is only when
I answer "off topic" questions like "bss" or the mapping of the
program sections to the constructs in the C language when everybody
will start screaming.

Answering about MSVC is not that bad and not off topic at all.
Dec 1 '06 #5
jacob navia said:
Richard Heathfield wrote:
<snip>
>>
Now that I've said all that, I must apologise to my fellow regular
contributors to this group for replying to an off-topic question with an
answer that is not a redirection to another group. I hope, however, that
they will reflect upon the possibility that "paz" may one day become an
world-class expert in ISO C programming as a result of not being sent off
to a Microsoft group...

Yes. Do not worry, the other members of this group will never cry
"off topic" when heathfield does something like this.
Probably not on *this* occasion, because they'll sympathise with the OP - we
were all newbies once - but "never"? Dream on. If I post off-topic stuff, I
*should* be criticised for so doing, and people are perfectly prepared to
do that. Chris Dollin did so earlier today, actually, in a thread about the
generation of unique IDs - and he was quite right. So - wrong again, Mr
Navia!
It is only when
I answer "off topic" questions like "bss" or the mapping of the
program sections to the constructs in the C language when everybody
will start screaming.
No, it's not just you. It's all of us. And no, nobody (or at least none of
the reasonable folk) will start screaming. It is possible to communicate
without screaming.
Answering about MSVC is not that bad and not off topic at all.
I wasn't giving an answer about MSVC in general, though - I was just giving
the guy a kickstart to help him get under way with his C learning.

--
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999
http://www.cpax.org.uk
email: rjh at the above domain, - www.
Dec 1 '06 #6
Richard Heathfield <rj*@see.sig.invalidwrites:
paz said:
>Does anybody know how to start new C project with microsoft visual c++?

This question is not topical in comp.lang.c BUT personally, I think it
should be. K&R have this to say on the matter:

"This is the big hurdle; to leap over it you have to be able to create the
program text somewhere, compile it successfully, load it, run it, and find
out where your output went. With these mechanical details mastered,
everything else is comparatively easy."

The niceties of Visual Studio are of course nothing to do with C itself, and
so normally I'd recommend that you find a Microsoft site. But frankly, if I
do that, you'll probably end up becoming a Microsofty, and I wouldn't wish
that on anyone.

So - here is the URL of a quick guide to starting a new C project in Visual
Studio (covers versions 5 and 6). If you have an earlier or later version
of Visual Studio, the basic procedure is typically much the same, but
things are in different places, that's all.

http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/windows/vcprj.php

Now that I've said all that, I must apologise to my fellow regular
contributors to this group for replying to an off-topic question with an
answer that is not a redirection to another group. I hope, however, that
they will reflect upon the possibility that "paz" may one day become an
world-class expert in ISO C programming as a result of not being sent off
to a Microsoft group...
Your guilty plea is rejected. You merely redirected the OP to a more
appropriate source of information. The fact that it wasn't another
newsgroup is irrelevant.

Nevertheless, you are sentenced to community service for an indefinite
period (or until you get tired of it).

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks***@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <* <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.
Dec 1 '06 #7
On Fri, 01 Dec 2006 10:53:32 +0000, Richard Heathfield
<rj*@see.sig.invalidwrote:
>Now that I've said all that, I must apologise to my fellow regular
contributors to this group for replying to an off-topic question with an
answer that is not a redirection to another group. I hope, however, that
they will reflect upon the possibility that "paz" may one day become an
world-class expert in ISO C programming as a result of not being sent off
to a Microsoft group...
That's the first time I've heard that particular reason for an
off-topic post, and I must admit that it's more persuasive than most
:-)

--
Al Balmer
Sun City, AZ
Dec 1 '06 #8
paz

:-)

Thanks!

Dec 2 '06 #9
paz
Thanks Pete!
I follow the steps and It's working now :-)

Paz

Dec 2 '06 #10
Richard Heathfield writes:
Now that I've said all that, I must apologise to my fellow regular
contributors to this group for replying to an off-topic question with
an answer that is not a redirection to another group. I hope,
however, that they will reflect upon the possibility that "paz" may
one day become an world-class expert in ISO C programming as a result
of not being sent off to a Microsoft group...
Oh really. The way you bash anyone over the head for mentioning
anything platform-specific, you could at least follow your own rules.
Your antipathy for Microsoft is off-topic here, so even your apology
is off-topic by your rules.

Supposedly this platform-post-bashing is supposed to keep this group
on-topic and get rid of noise. Yet the current biggest noise generator
in this group is the subthread *you* started about on-topicness. 140+
messages in "variable allocated from stack/bss ??" and still going
strong. Furthermore, you started it in such a way as to guarantee that
there would be more postings which by your own rules are off-topic: you
asked for chapter and verse about a unix-specific reply, and followed up
with criticizing a brief and useful (and incomplete) reply.

In short, your "topicness police" posting was simply successful
trolling. And you went on with your trolling when the respondent gave -
entirely predictably - a defense of his own reply. All of which is
quite common for topicness postings. (Including this one, I'm sure.
But I'm getting fed up sometimes. At least I've changed the subject so
people can killfile this thread.)

Now that you've felt the irresistible urge to give a reply which even
you recognize as off-topic though, maybe you can understand that it's
actually possible for such replies to have a place here. What you
haven't quite got is that it's also possible for such a reply to be
useful and to the point, without going on and on about topicness.
For example, instead of your trolling post you could have said something
like:

Note that stack and bss are platform-specific (typically Unix), so
don't depend on them in a portable program. As such it's also off-
topic for this newsgroup, ask on comp.unix.programmer if you want to
know more about them.

There. Useful information (assuming I got the Unix part right, which
I'm not sure of anymore:-), directs further discussion elsewhere like
your dear topicness postings are presumably intended to, and does not
attack anything or in other ways troll for further off-topic discussion.

--
Hallvard
Dec 2 '06 #11
Hallvard B Furuseth a écrit :
Richard Heathfield writes:
>>Now that I've said all that, I must apologise to my fellow regular
contributors to this group for replying to an off-topic question with
an answer that is not a redirection to another group. I hope,
however, that they will reflect upon the possibility that "paz" may
one day become an world-class expert in ISO C programming as a result
of not being sent off to a Microsoft group...


Oh really. The way you bash anyone over the head for mentioning
anything platform-specific, you could at least follow your own rules.
Your antipathy for Microsoft is off-topic here, so even your apology
is off-topic by your rules.
Exactly
>
Supposedly this platform-post-bashing is supposed to keep this group
on-topic and get rid of noise. Yet the current biggest noise generator
in this group is the subthread *you* started about on-topicness. 140+
messages in "variable allocated from stack/bss ??" and still going
strong. Furthermore, you started it in such a way as to guarantee that
there would be more postings which by your own rules are off-topic: you
asked for chapter and verse about a unix-specific reply, and followed up
with criticizing a brief and useful (and incomplete) reply.
I agree it was incomplete but I didn't expect such a reaction.
In short, your "topicness police" posting was simply successful
trolling. And you went on with your trolling when the respondent gave -
entirely predictably - a defense of his own reply. All of which is
quite common for topicness postings. (Including this one, I'm sure.
But I'm getting fed up sometimes. At least I've changed the subject so
people can killfile this thread.)

Now that you've felt the irresistible urge to give a reply which even
you recognize as off-topic though, maybe you can understand that it's
actually possible for such replies to have a place here. What you
haven't quite got is that it's also possible for such a reply to be
useful and to the point, without going on and on about topicness.
For example, instead of your trolling post you could have said something
like:

Note that stack and bss are platform-specific (typically Unix), so
don't depend on them in a portable program. As such it's also off-
topic for this newsgroup, ask on comp.unix.programmer if you want to
know more about them.

There. Useful information (assuming I got the Unix part right, which
I'm not sure of anymore:-), directs further discussion elsewhere like
your dear topicness postings are presumably intended to, and does not
attack anything or in other ways troll for further off-topic discussion.

This is because I am not in heathfield's Accepted Posted Club (APC)

I have the feeling that I can say "The sun rises in the east" and
heathfield will start with "This is planet specific. In planet XYZ
the sun doesn't rise at all since the planet doesn't rotate"

The best was the answer from somebody that said the the C language
did not even assume a machine since there could be a human doing the
calculations instead of a compiler...

Of course that is true, and the sun doesn't always rise in the east,
specially in planet XYZ. But let's not start again :-)
Dec 2 '06 #12
jacob navia said:

<snip>
This is because I am not in heathfield's Accepted Posted Club (APC)
You might choose to think so, but in fact I generally pay more attention to
what is said than to who says it. It is, however, difficult not to notice
when a particular poster gives consistently erroneous information.
I have the feeling that I can say "The sun rises in the east" and
heathfield will start with "This is planet specific. In planet XYZ
the sun doesn't rise at all since the planet doesn't rotate"
Precisely. On Venus, Earth's closest planetary neighbour, the sun rises in
the West. Any planet that is gravitationally locked to its star will not
experience sunrise at all. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
--
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999
http://www.cpax.org.uk
email: rjh at the above domain, - www.
Dec 2 '06 #13
In article <1t********************@bt.com>,
Richard Heathfield <rj*@see.sig.invalidwrote:
>jacob navia said:

<snip>
>This is because I am not in heathfield's Accepted Posted Club (APC)

You might choose to think so, but in fact I generally pay more attention to
what is said than to who says it. It is, however, difficult not to notice
when a particular poster gives consistently erroneous information.
You also lie as well as you breathe.

I think that's really all anyone needs to know about Heathfield.

Dec 3 '06 #14
Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
Richard Heathfield writes:
>>Now that I've said all that, I must apologise to my fellow regular
contributors to this group for replying to an off-topic question with
an answer that is not a redirection to another group. I hope,
however, that they will reflect upon the possibility that "paz" may
one day become an world-class expert in ISO C programming as a result
of not being sent off to a Microsoft group...
[snipped stuff about off-topic post by Richard and his attitude about
off-topic posts by others]
>
Here Richard replied to post by Jacob Navia (naturally, Richard
Heathfield could not leave last word to Jacob), but didn't say a word
about this very post which Jacob posted a reply to. Still, it would
be interesting to hear what Richard thinks about it. He feels it's okay
to drag in Venus even though he could use Earth for nitpicking (you
know, sun almost never raises in the East on almost whole Earth
surface), but he doesn't feel it needed to address valid concerns about
his "C&V", "Wrong", and similar nice laconic replies to anything
off-topic.

Richard, could you indeed comment on this? Or on how a link to
some web page is as good as directing OP to an appropriate newsgroup
so that zillions of experts may correct possible mistakes for the
peace on Earth? The latter is a question to kind wise Keith Thompson
too, by the way.

Really, guys, you want to kill off-topic posts, fine. You keep
repeating stuff about appropriate forums and "experts", fine. But
be consistent! When you are fighting Jacob Navia, it's well understood:
you don't like each other, you offend each other, normal relationships.
But be consistent at least when Jacob Navia is not involved.

I guess it's normal for anyone to give an off-topic reply to an
off-topic post sometimes, off-topicness is not something unusual for me
at least. But let's not pretend we are cool then?

Best regards,
Yevgen

P.S. Jacob, if you agree or disagree, please do not reply. You know
the "Do not feed..." thing? Not sure who would feed who, but it would do
no good in any case.
Dec 3 '06 #15
Yevgen Muntyan a écrit :
P.S. Jacob, if you agree or disagree, please do not reply. You know
the "Do not feed..." thing? Not sure who would feed who, but it would do
no good in any case.

:-)
Dec 3 '06 #16
Yevgen Muntyan said:

<snip>
Here Richard replied to post by Jacob Navia (naturally, Richard
Heathfield could not leave last word to Jacob),
I'm happy for Mr Navia to have the last word, if it's a *correct* last word.
Richard, could you indeed comment on this? Or on how a link to
some web page is as good as directing OP to an appropriate newsgroup
so that zillions of experts may correct possible mistakes for the
peace on Earth? The latter is a question to kind wise Keith Thompson
too, by the way.
I explained my reasons for recommending a Web page rather than a newsgroup
at the time I made the recommendation.

Really, guys, you want to kill off-topic posts, fine. You keep
repeating stuff about appropriate forums and "experts", fine. But
be consistent! When you are fighting Jacob Navia, it's well understood:
you don't like each other, you offend each other, normal relationships.
Then it's well-misunderstood. I'm not interested in liking or disliking
Jacob Navia, and I'm not interested in his opinion of me. What I'm
interested in is people not being misled by incorrect information. That's
why I post corrections when I notice people making mistakes - and it's why
I apologise if I discover that I myself have given incorrect information.
It has nothing to do with likes or dislikes.

--
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999
http://www.cpax.org.uk
email: rjh at the above domain, - www.
Dec 3 '06 #17
jacob navia writes:
Hallvard B Furuseth a écrit :
>(....) Furthermore, you started it in such a way as to guarantee
that there would be more postings which by your own rules are
off-topic: you asked for chapter and verse about a unix-specific
reply, and followed up with criticizing a brief and useful (and
incomplete) reply.

I agree it was incomplete but I didn't expect such a reaction.
Actually I hadn't noticed that you posted a reply too, I was referring
to "MQ"'s post and Richard's reply. Just how many obnoxious replies did
he post in that thread? Looking a bit more he had a direct "this is
off-topic" reply to the OP too, which provided no useful information
whatsoever - not even where he thought he the question should be taken
instead.
>(...) There. Useful information (assuming I got the Unix part
right, which I'm not sure of anymore:-), directs further discussion
elsewhere like your dear topicness postings are presumably intended
to, and does not attack anything or in other ways troll for further
off-topic discussion.

This is because I am not in heathfield's Accepted Posted Club (APC)
Me neither, and I would not post that myself. My point is that when
Richard feels the urge to post such messages, _he_ could post like that.
And when he's not responding to someone who as committed the horrible
offense of posting a helpful "off-topic" response, but instead is doing
that himself, he could prepend the actual answer to the question, of
course. Like he'd never do I'm sure, except apparently when the
alternative is to lead people towards Microsoft.
I have the feeling that I can say "The sun rises in the east" and
heathfield will start with "This is planet specific. In planet XYZ
the sun doesn't rise at all since the planet doesn't rotate"
(...)
--
Hallvard
Dec 3 '06 #18
Richard Heathfield writes:
Then it's well-misunderstood. I'm not interested in liking or
disliking Jacob Navia, and I'm not interested in his opinion of
me. What I'm interested in is people not being misled by incorrect
information.
Then give correct information instead. I haven't browsed more than a
fraction of that thread, but the OP was clearly not thinking of "the ISO
C standard", just "C", there is no reason to assume the OP there learned
anything at all from your messages. He even had to ask in which way you
were being obnoxious just to understand your reply.

Your replies - other than the one to the OP - were directed towards the
respondents rather than the OP, so they were _not_ doing anything to
prevent him being "misled by incorrect information".

--
Hallvard
Dec 3 '06 #19
In article <jb********************@bt.com>,
Richard Heathfield <rj*@see.sig.invalidbloviated:
....
>Then it's well-misunderstood. I'm not interested in liking or disliking
Jacob Navia, and I'm not interested in his opinion of me. What I'm
interested in is people not being misled by incorrect information. That's
why I post corrections when I notice people making mistakes - and it's why
I apologise if I discover that I myself have given incorrect information.
It has nothing to do with likes or dislikes.
You lie like a rug.

Dec 3 '06 #20
Hallvard B Furuseth said:
Richard Heathfield writes:
>Then it's well-misunderstood. I'm not interested in liking or
disliking Jacob Navia, and I'm not interested in his opinion of
me. What I'm interested in is people not being misled by incorrect
information.

Then give correct information instead.
I did.
I haven't browsed more than a
fraction of that thread, but the OP was clearly not thinking of "the ISO
C standard", just "C",
The one defines the other.

--
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999
http://www.cpax.org.uk
email: rjh at the above domain, - www.
Dec 3 '06 #21
Richard Heathfield writes:
>Hallvard B Furuseth said:
>>Richard Heathfield writes:
>>Then it's well-misunderstood. I'm not interested in liking or
disliking Jacob Navia, and I'm not interested in his opinion of
me. What I'm interested in is people not being misled by incorrect
information.

Then give correct information instead.

I did.
You are right for the first message, I've read that thread quite out of
order. Sorry about that. What you didn't do was answer the OP's
question. He made some assumptions - about the implementation he was
using, obviously, you could have said something about those particular
assumptions.

OTOH, your following "C&V please" responses did not give information at
all. The OP even had to post a followup just to learn what you meant.
>I haven't browsed more than a fraction of that thread, but the OP was
clearly not thinking of "the ISO C standard", just "C",

The one defines the other.
In your mind, obviously. In the OP's and several others' minds,
obviously "C means something wider than that, or they don't have the
standard anyway.

BTW, I guess my mention of comp.unix.programmer was wrong. After all,
there is a definition of Unix too, it's even trademarked, so one
shouldn't refer to comp.unix.programmer for anything which not the
trademarked Unix, right?

--
Hallvard
Dec 3 '06 #22
Hallvard B Furuseth said:
Richard Heathfield writes:
>>Hallvard B Furuseth said:
>>>Richard Heathfield writes:
Then it's well-misunderstood. I'm not interested in liking or
disliking Jacob Navia, and I'm not interested in his opinion of
me. What I'm interested in is people not being misled by incorrect
information.

Then give correct information instead.

I did.

You are right for the first message, I've read that thread quite out of
order. Sorry about that.
Your apology is accepted.
What you didn't do was answer the OP's question.
That is because the OP's question didn't really have a C answer, except
perhaps "The C Standard doesn't require your implementation to have a bss
or a stack", which is what I said.
He made some assumptions - about the implementation he was
using, obviously, you could have said something about those particular
assumptions.
I did - by saying "The C Standard doesn't require your implementation to
have a bss or a stack" - i.e. I indicated that he was making incorrect
assumptions.
OTOH, your following "C&V please" responses did not give information at
all.
"C&V please" is a request for information, not an offer of information. Mr
Navia had claimed that the OP was correct to think that "it is stack", and
I was asking Mr Navia to give supporting evidence for his claim.
The OP even had to post a followup just to learn what you meant.
Fine, but I was asking Mr Navia, not the OP, to provide that supporting
information.
>>I haven't browsed more than a fraction of that thread, but the OP was
clearly not thinking of "the ISO C standard", just "C",

The one defines the other.

In your mind, obviously. In the OP's and several others' minds,
obviously "C means something wider than that,
Neither their view of what C is, nor mine, is normative.
or they don't have the standard anyway.
<shrugIt's available.
BTW, I guess my mention of comp.unix.programmer was wrong. After all,
there is a definition of Unix too, it's even trademarked, so one
shouldn't refer to comp.unix.programmer for anything which not the
trademarked Unix, right?
No idea. That's a question for comp.unix.programmer, not comp.lang.c.

--
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999
http://www.cpax.org.uk
email: rjh at the above domain, - www.
Dec 3 '06 #23
Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
Richard Heathfield writes:
>Then it's well-misunderstood. I'm not interested in liking or
disliking Jacob Navia, and I'm not interested in his opinion of
me. What I'm interested in is people not being misled by incorrect
information.

Then give correct information instead. I haven't browsed more than
a fraction of that thread, but the OP was clearly not thinking of
"the ISO C standard", just "C", there is no reason to assume the OP
there learned anything at all from your messages. He even had to
ask in which way you were being obnoxious just to understand your
reply.
What do you think defines "C". So you have your own private C
standard to which you refer? Is it accepted and approved by the
various worldwide standard bodies? The only document I can think
of that meets those criteria is the ISO C standrd, commonly known
as C99.

--
Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
<http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
Dec 3 '06 #24
Richard Heathfield wrote:
Yevgen Muntyan said:

<snip>
>>Here Richard replied to post by Jacob Navia (naturally, Richard
Heathfield could not leave last word to Jacob),


I'm happy for Mr Navia to have the last word, if it's a *correct* last word.
I believe your reply about Venus and Earth actually confirmed that
Jacob was right (he said something like "If I said ... then you would
...."), i.e. you didn't let him have last word even though it was
correct.
>>Richard, could you indeed comment on this? Or on how a link to
some web page is as good as directing OP to an appropriate newsgroup
so that zillions of experts may correct possible mistakes for the
peace on Earth? The latter is a question to kind wise Keith Thompson
too, by the way.


I explained my reasons for recommending a Web page rather than a newsgroup
at the time I made the recommendation.
You explained your reasons for recommending web page, but you didn't
tell why/if a link to some web page is as good as directing OP to an
appropriate newsgroup so that zillions of experts may correct possible
mistakes (this is the most popular excuse for "off-topic here, go to
foo.blah.something, and I won't tell anything" stuff).
>>Really, guys, you want to kill off-topic posts, fine. You keep
repeating stuff about appropriate forums and "experts", fine. But
be consistent! When you are fighting Jacob Navia, it's well understood:
you don't like each other, you offend each other, normal relationships.


Then it's well-misunderstood. I'm not interested in liking or disliking
Jacob Navia, and I'm not interested in his opinion of me. What I'm
interested in is people not being misled by incorrect information.
Oh yeah, your replies to Jacob's post show exactly this, that you
care only about the truth. Like, if Jacob says that he's not in
"heathfield something club", then you want to prevent people from
being misled by this Jacob's statement.
That's why I post corrections when I notice people making mistakes -
and it's why I apologise if I discover that I myself have given
incorrect information. It has nothing to do with likes or dislikes.
What you're doing is way too often something in the range from feeding
trolls to simply being a jerk. It'd be silly to ask you not to be like
that, of course, but maybe you could at least cool a bit your replies?

Yevgen
Dec 3 '06 #25
In article <gQGch.2258$Qa7.359@trnddc03>,
Yevgen Muntyan <mu****************@tamu.eduwrote:
>Richard Heathfield wrote:
>Yevgen Muntyan said:

<snip>
>>>Here Richard replied to post by Jacob Navia (naturally, Richard
Heathfield could not leave last word to Jacob),


I'm happy for Mr Navia to have the last word, if it's a *correct* last word.

I believe your reply about Venus and Earth actually confirmed that
Jacob was right (he said something like "If I said ... then you would
..."), i.e. you didn't let him have last word even though it was
correct.
You are absolutely right, of course. (Now, let's count the minutes
until KT posts that I am not your friend...)

Actually, there's a lot to be said for the notion that the definition of
"East" is the direction of the rising sun - so if a planet spins in the
opposite direction of the Earth, then the definition of "East" changes
accordingly.

And, to any of the jobworths here who would say that sort of re-definition
isn't valid, well, I think we can all agree that much worse
re-definition goes on here all the time (starting with the nutsoid
contention that C == ISO C == C99 (oops, I mean, C89, oops, er, ...))
....
>Oh yeah, your replies to Jacob's post show exactly this, that you
care only about the truth. Like, if Jacob says that he's not in
"heathfield something club", then you want to prevent people from
being misled by this Jacob's statement.
Ego just wouldn't allow letting that statement go unchallenged.
Even though it is, of course, dead on.
>What you're doing is way too often something in the range from feeding
trolls to simply being a jerk.
Keep in mind that it has been pretty well established by now that "RH"
is just a pimply 17 year old (probably using Daddy's computer w/o
permission).

Dec 3 '06 #26
CBFalconer writes:
Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
>Then give correct information instead. I haven't browsed more than
a fraction of that thread, but the OP was clearly not thinking of
"the ISO C standard", just "C", there is no reason to assume the OP
there learned anything at all from your messages. He even had to
ask in which way you were being obnoxious just to understand your
reply.

What do you think defines "C". So you have your own private C
standard to which you refer? (...)
C has a standard which defines the offical language. Fine. But as for
"C", as a word, as something to discuss for programming: Well, a C
program is something which is intended to be accepted by a C compiler, I
guess. I.e. this is a C program:

void main() {}

It's a C program which uses a compiler extension which should be
taken out and shot, but still a C program.

Remove the 'v' in void and I'd still call it a C program. With a fatal
typo.

--
Hallvard
Dec 3 '06 #27
Yevgen Muntyan said:
Richard Heathfield wrote:
>Yevgen Muntyan said:

<snip>
>>>Here Richard replied to post by Jacob Navia (naturally, Richard
Heathfield could not leave last word to Jacob),


I'm happy for Mr Navia to have the last word, if it's a *correct* last
word.

I believe your reply about Venus and Earth actually confirmed that
Jacob was right (he said something like "If I said ... then you would
..."), i.e. you didn't let him have last word even though it was
correct.
But it wasn't correct.

--
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999
http://www.cpax.org.uk
email: rjh at the above domain, - www.
Dec 3 '06 #28
Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
void main() {}

It's a C program which uses a compiler extension which should be
taken out and shot, but still a C program.

Remove the 'v' in void and I'd still call it a C program.
With a fatal typo.
That wouldn't be a typo.
That would just be a form of main
which is acceptable to an implementation
which AFAIK has yet to be implemented.
Like this C program:
DoidyDoidyDoidyDoidyDoidyDoidyDoidyDoidyDoidyDoidy

--
pete
Dec 3 '06 #29
pete writes:
Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
> void main() {}
(...)
Remove the 'v' in void and I'd still call it a C program.
With a fatal typo.

That wouldn't be a typo.
That would just be a form of main
which is acceptable to an implementation
which AFAIK has yet to be implemented.
Like this C program:
DoidyDoidyDoidyDoidyDoidyDoidyDoidyDoidyDoidyDoidy
Irony aside, that's a good point. I don't know where to draw the line,
but a deliberately non-compiling program seems as good limit as any.
So it'd not be a program if I deliberately removed the 'v' as above,
but it would be if I accidentally leaned on the delete key. Oh well.
Good enough, if one has to find a limit.

--
Hallvard
Dec 3 '06 #30
Hallvard B Furuseth <h.**********@usit.uio.nowrites:
CBFalconer writes:
>Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
>>Then give correct information instead. I haven't browsed more than
a fraction of that thread, but the OP was clearly not thinking of
"the ISO C standard", just "C", there is no reason to assume the OP
there learned anything at all from your messages. He even had to
ask in which way you were being obnoxious just to understand your
reply.

What do you think defines "C". So you have your own private C
standard to which you refer? (...)

C has a standard which defines the offical language. Fine. But as for
"C", as a word, as something to discuss for programming: Well, a C
program is something which is intended to be accepted by a C compiler, I
guess. I.e. this is a C program:

void main() {}

It's a C program which uses a compiler extension which should be
taken out and shot, but still a C program.
[...]

It's a "conforming program" as defined in C99 4p7:

A _conforming program_ is one that is acceptable to a conforming
implementation.

I could grab a copy of any open-source conforming C compiler, modify
it to accept (as an extension) any arbitrary input I like, and cause
that input to become a "conforming program".

We don't often discuss the category of "conforming programs" here
because it's too broad to be useful. I believe it was included in the
standard for political reasons. (Not that there's anything wrong with
that.)

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks***@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <* <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.
Dec 3 '06 #31
Hallvard B Furuseth said:

<snip>
C has a standard which defines the offical language. Fine. But as for
"C", as a word, as something to discuss for programming: Well, a C
program is something which is intended to be accepted by a C compiler, I
guess. I.e. this is a C program:

void main() {}

It's a C program which uses a compiler extension which should be
taken out and shot, but still a C program.

Remove the 'v' in void and I'd still call it a C program. With a fatal
typo.
How many typos do you allow before it stops being a C program?

--
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999
http://www.cpax.org.uk
email: rjh at the above domain, - www.
Dec 4 '06 #32
Richard Heathfield writes:
>Hallvard B Furuseth said:
>>Richard Heathfield writes:
>>>Hallvard B Furuseth said:
Richard Heathfield writes:
Then it's well-misunderstood. I'm not interested in liking or
disliking Jacob Navia, and I'm not interested in his opinion of
me. What I'm interested in is people not being misled by incorrect
information.

Then give correct information instead.

I did.

You are right for the first message, I've read that thread quite out of
order. Sorry about that.

Your apology is accepted.
Thank you. Er, partial apology anyway...
>What you didn't do was answer the OP's question.

That is because the OP's question didn't really have a C answer,
except perhaps "The C Standard doesn't require your implementation to
have a bss or a stack", which is what I said.
Yup, that's one thing I'm complaining about. There is no way to tell if
the answer actually told him anything he needed/wanted to know. If he
was looking for "how to write a conforming C program", fine. The
posting didn't indicate that, however. If he was exploring his computer
and trying to learn how it worked at low level, it was a near useless
answer.

Just that it was posted here doesn't mean that it shall and must be
interpreted in terms on Standard C, in particular when it's obvious that
the poster is not thinking about Standard C.

Nor does an otherwise correct answer suddenly become incorrect just
because it is posted here instead of in some non-C group. The
"incorrect" answers you refer to _were_ correct. Just not Standard C
answers.
>He made some assumptions - about the implementation he was
using, obviously, you could have said something about those particular
assumptions.

I did - by saying "The C Standard doesn't require your implementation
to have a bss or a stack" - i.e. I indicated that he was making
incorrect assumptions.
If he had asked the question it terms of standard C, that would be so.
He didn't, so you had no info to assume he was making incorrect
assumptions. Maybe he was, or maybe you are the one making incorrect
assumptions. The latter seems more likely in this case.
>OTOH, your following "C&V please" responses did not give information at
all.

"C&V please" is a request for information, not an offer of information. Mr
Navia had claimed that the OP was correct to think that "it is stack", and
I was asking Mr Navia to give supporting evidence for his claim.
OK, you were _not_ interested in that point at seeing the OP "not being
misled by incorrect information", then. And you gave the same answer to
"MQ", who there was no reason to assume knew what you meant.
>>The OP even had to post a followup just to learn what you meant.

Fine, but I was asking Mr Navia, not the OP, to provide that supporting
information.
Except that you already knew there wasn't any, so that was not really
what you were asking for. That's where I see it as equivalent to
trolling, because you are asking for the thread to expand to an old
quarrel. Also it's a quarrel which is likely of no interest to the OP,
yet the OP will have to wade through it if he wants to find any posts
which _do_ interest him.
>>>I haven't browsed more than a fraction of that thread, but the OP was
clearly not thinking of "the ISO C standard", just "C",

The one defines the other.

In your mind, obviously. In the OP's and several others' minds,
obviously "C means something wider than that,

Neither their view of what C is, nor mine, is normative.
Fine:-)
>or they don't have the standard anyway.

<shrugIt's available.
But possession of the Standard is not a required ticket to this
newsgroup.
>BTW, I guess my mention of comp.unix.programmer was wrong. After all,
there is a definition of Unix too, it's even trademarked, so one
shouldn't refer to comp.unix.programmer for anything which not the
trademarked Unix, right?

No idea. That's a question for comp.unix.programmer, not comp.lang.c.
That was supposed to be a rhetorical question...

--
Hallvard
Dec 5 '06 #33
Richard Heathfield writes:
Hallvard B Furuseth said:
>C has a standard which defines the offical language. Fine. But as for
"C", as a word, as something to discuss for programming: Well, a C
program is something which is intended to be accepted by a C compiler, I
guess. I.e. this is a C program:

void main() {}

It's a C program which uses a compiler extension which should be
taken out and shot, but still a C program.

Remove the 'v' in void and I'd still call it a C program. With a fatal
typo.

How many typos do you allow before it stops being a C program?
I neither know nor care. You run into the same problem of defining what
is and is not a C program whatever you call C anyway, like "this posting
is a C program because I intend to see how well it fits the ISO C
standard."

Point is though, that if one wants a definition of what is or is not C,
intent looks as reasonable as anything.

--
Hallvard
Dec 5 '06 #34
Keith Thompson writes:
Hallvard B Furuseth <h.**********@usit.uio.nowrites:
>C has a standard which defines the offical language. Fine. But as for
"C", as a word, as something to discuss for programming: Well, a C
program is something which is intended to be accepted by a C compiler, I
guess. I.e. this is a C program:

void main() {}

It's a C program which uses a compiler extension which should be
taken out and shot, but still a C program.
[...]

It's a "conforming program" as defined in C99 4p7:
It is? OK, make that
__attribute__((pure)) int main() {return 0;}
then (a GCC extension, if it makes my point easier to understand.

(Note, I may be posting a bit irregularly this week, sorry about that.
Bad time to start a thread like this.)

--
Hallvard
Dec 5 '06 #35
Hallvard B Furuseth said:
Richard Heathfield writes:
>>Hallvard B Furuseth said:
>>BTW, I guess my mention of comp.unix.programmer was wrong. After all,
there is a definition of Unix too, it's even trademarked, so one
shouldn't refer to comp.unix.programmer for anything which not the
trademarked Unix, right?

No idea. That's a question for comp.unix.programmer, not comp.lang.c.

That was supposed to be a rhetorical question...
....and you got a rhetorical answer.

--
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999
http://www.cpax.org.uk
email: rjh at the above domain, - www.
Dec 5 '06 #36
Hallvard B Furuseth <h.**********@usit.uio.nowrites:
Keith Thompson writes:
>Hallvard B Furuseth <h.**********@usit.uio.nowrites:
>>C has a standard which defines the offical language. Fine. But as for
"C", as a word, as something to discuss for programming: Well, a C
program is something which is intended to be accepted by a C compiler, I
guess. I.e. this is a C program:

void main() {}

It's a C program which uses a compiler extension which should be
taken out and shot, but still a C program.
[...]

It's a "conforming program" as defined in C99 4p7:

It is? OK, make that
__attribute__((pure)) int main() {return 0;}
then (a GCC extension, if it makes my point easier to understand.
That's also a "conforming program", as far as I can tell, assuming
that (a) it's acceptable to gcc, and (b) gcc is a conforming
implementation. The standard's definition of "conforming program" is
specifically intended to allow for the use of extensions.

C99 4p6:

[...]
A conforming implementation may have extensions (including
additional library functions), provided they do not alter the
behavior of any strictly conforming program.

C99 4p7:

A _conforming program_ is one that is acceptable to a conforming
implementation.

with a footnote:

Strictly conforming programs are intended to be maximally portable
among conforming implementations. Conforming programs may depend
upon nonportable features of a conforming implementation.

My point is that the term "conforming program" is, IMHO, too broad to
be particularly useful. There should be a category of programs that
are acceptable to all possible conforming implementations without
necessarily being strictly conforming.

But the whole issue is mired in political requirements, and any
proposal for a change to the standard would likely generate more heat
than light.

But we were talking about, um, (looking back up to the Subject line)
topicality. So, to get back to that, in my opinion, discussion
of the fact that your program above is a "conforming program" is
certainly topical, but a discussion of the specific semantics of
"__attribute__((pure))" would not be. More generally, discussion
of the fact that extensions are allowed, and what form they can
take in a conforming implementation, is topical; discussion of
specific extensions is more appropriate in a system-specific or
compiler-specific newsgroup.

To go back to your earlier example, we can't just say that
"void main()" is invalid, illegal, bad, evil, etc. We have to
acknowledge that an implementation is allowed to support it, but it's
non-portable and there's rarely a good reason to use it in a program
intended for a hosted implementation.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks***@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <* <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.
Dec 5 '06 #37
Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
Point is though,
that if one wants a definition of what is or is not C,
intent looks as reasonable as anything.
I consider a program which invokes undefined behavior,
to be not a C program,
because the code doesn't mean anything.

--
pete
Dec 6 '06 #38
pete <pf*****@mindspring.comwrites:
Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
>Point is though,
that if one wants a definition of what is or is not C,
intent looks as reasonable as anything.

I consider a program which invokes undefined behavior,
to be not a C program,
because the code doesn't mean anything.
Ok, but I'd call it a meaningless C program.

In fact, it can definitely be a "conforming program" as defined by the
standard.

I think the real conclusion is that "Is this a C program?" isn't
always a useful question to ask, much less answer.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks***@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <* <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.
Dec 6 '06 #39
Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
Richard Heathfield writes:
>How many typos do you allow before it stops being a C program?

I neither know nor care. You run into the same problem of defining what
is and is not a C program whatever you call C anyway, like "this posting
is a C program because I intend to see how well it fits the ISO C
standard."

Point is though, that if one wants a definition of what is or is not C,
intent looks as reasonable as anything.
So, then, is this a C program?

#include <stdio.h>
int main(void) {
const char *addressee = "world";
puts ("Hello, %s!\n", addresee);
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

The intent, I hope, is clear -- but to my way of thinking,
it's not C.

--
Eric Sosman
es*****@acm-dot-org.invalid
Dec 6 '06 #40
Eric Sosman wrote:
>
Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
Richard Heathfield writes:
How many typos do you allow before it stops being a C program?
I neither know nor care. You run into the same problem of defining what
is and is not a C program whatever you call C anyway, like "this posting
is a C program because I intend to see how well it fits the ISO C
standard."

Point is though, that if one wants a definition of what is or is not C,
intent looks as reasonable as anything.

So, then, is this a C program?

#include <stdio.h>
int main(void) {
const char *addressee = "world";
puts ("Hello, %s!\n", addresee);
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

The intent, I hope, is clear -- but to my way of thinking,
it's not C.
Keith Thompson suggested the term "meaningless C program"
but I prefer to call text like that
"gibberish that looks like a C program".

--
pete
Dec 6 '06 #41
Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
>
.... snip ...
>
Just that it was posted here doesn't mean that it shall and must be
interpreted in terms on Standard C, in particular when it's obvious
that the poster is not thinking about Standard C.
That is just an indication that the OP is ignorant of what is and
is not topical here. He needs to be informed. Answering the
off-topic question just encourages the bad behaviour by him or
others.

--
Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
<http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
Dec 6 '06 #42
CBFalconer writes:
>Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
>Just that it was posted here doesn't mean that it shall and must be
interpreted in terms on Standard C, in particular when it's obvious
that the poster is not thinking about Standard C.

That is just an indication that the OP is ignorant of what is and
is not topical here. He needs to be informed.
Fine, if people would relax a bit about what is on/off-topic. But
that's beside the point in this particular quote, I was referring to
Richard's claim that being off-topic made the answers were incorrect.
Answering the off-topic question just encourages the bad behaviour by
him or others.
Posting out of ignorance is not bad behavior. Posting out of ignorance
is a significant part of what this group is _for_.

As for bad behavior, one example of that is to start out by expecting
people to behave badly just because they made a mistake. Any society
gets better along if one starts out by expecting people to behave well,
within some loose limits, and _then_ slap down the offenders.

And what bad behavior do you refer to anyway? I originally thought the
point of this topicness insistence to keep up the ratio of on-topic
posts. If that's what you mean, my original point remains that the
topicness postings generate a lot more noise. Or if you mean posting
"incorrect" information which is "incorrect" just because it's not about
standard C, well as I've said that makes little sense to me.

--
Hallvard
Dec 7 '06 #43
Eric Sosman writes:
>Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
>>Richard Heathfield writes:
>>How many typos do you allow before it stops being a C program?
I neither know nor care. You run into the same problem of defining
what is and is not a C program whatever you call C anyway, (...)

So, then, is this a C program?
Again, I don't care. I'm not the one who wants a strict definition of
what kind of programs one can post here. However in this case...
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void) {
const char *addressee = "world";
puts ("Hello, %s!\n", addresee);
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

The intent, I hope, is clear -- but to my way of thinking,
it's not C.
Not even a syntax error, only semantic errors. I'd call it a C program.

If that's not a C program, where do _you_ put the limit for whether it's
a C program? Must compile without errors? Not more than some fraction
of errors? Or do you too not care?

--
Hallvard
Dec 7 '06 #44
Keith Thompson writes:
>Hallvard B Furuseth <h.**********@usit.uio.nowrites:
>>Keith Thompson writes:
>>It's a "conforming program" as defined in C99 4p7:

It is? OK, make that
__attribute__((pure)) int main() {return 0;}
then (a GCC extension, if it makes my point easier to understand.

That's also a "conforming program", as far as I can tell, (...)

My point is that the term "conforming program" is, IMHO, too broad to
be particularly useful. There should be a category of programs that
are acceptable to all possible conforming implementations without
necessarily being strictly conforming. (...)
Oh, I see. Yes, that makes sense.
But we were talking about, um, (looking back up to the Subject line)
topicality. So, to get back to that, in my opinion, discussion
of the fact that your program above is a "conforming program" is
certainly topical, but a discussion of the specific semantics of
"__attribute__((pure))" would not be.
Fine by me, if some people wouldn't get so fierce about it.
More generally, discussion of the fact that extensions are allowed,
and what form they can take in a conforming implementation, is
topical; discussion of specific extensions is more appropriate in a
system-specific or compiler-specific newsgroup.
Fine, but that does not translate to "never discuss it", nor to "do not
give any information about it once you are answering anyway". I'm not
aware of any evidence that "off-topic" postings are nearly as much
of a problem as topicness postings.
To go back to your earlier example, we can't just say that "void
main()" is invalid, illegal, bad, evil, etc. We have to acknowledge
that an implementation is allowed to support it, but it's non-portable
and there's rarely a good reason to use it in a program intended for a
hosted implementation.
Fine.

--
Hallvard
Dec 7 '06 #45
>Eric Sosman writes:
> #include <stdio.h>
int main(void) {
const char *addressee = "world";
puts ("Hello, %s!\n", addresee);
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

The intent, I hope, is clear -- but to my way of thinking,
it's not C.
In article <hb**************@bombur.uio.no>
Hallvard B Furuseth <h.**********@usit.uio.nowrote:
>Not even a syntax error, only semantic errors. I'd call it a C program.
I can only answer for myself, but I would call this a "broken C
program" in most cases.
>If that's not a C program, where do _you_ put the limit for whether it's
a C program?
I think one must take "intent" into account. If someone writes:

int main(vodi) {
/* a bunch of correct stuff here */
}

it seems obvious that "vodi" was a typo for "void", not an intentional
mis-spelling, or use of a new bizarre keyword in the "C-=42" language.
On the other hand, if the author of the code tells you: "No, that was
intentional, this is the use of a new bizarre keyword in the C-=42
language", then what seemed obvious is in fact wrong, and it is not
a C program, but rather a C-=42 program.

Intent is inherently impossible to ascertain with certainty. One
can ask the intend-er, but even then, he/she/it could lie. In many
cases, though, one can guess pretty well, and it seems appropriate
to believe any "statements of intent" made by the intend-er.

Note that "intent" applies to compilers as well. A C99 compiler
that gets something wrong by mistake is (to me) still "a C99
compiler" (or perhaps "a broken C99 compiler"), but GCC -- which
intentionally violates several C99-isms -- is *not* a C99 compiler,
not even with -std=c99. Compare this with "gcc -std=c89 -pedantic",
which *does* intend to be a C89 compiler: if it gets something
wrong, it is just a bug, not an intentional violation of some
requirement.
--
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Wind River Systems
Salt Lake City, UT, USA (40°39.22'N, 111°50.29'W) +1 801 277 2603
email: forget about it http://web.torek.net/torek/index.html
Reading email is like searching for food in the garbage, thanks to spammers.
Dec 7 '06 #46
Hallvard B Furuseth <h.**********@usit.uio.nowrites:
Keith Thompson writes:
[...]
>More generally, discussion of the fact that extensions are allowed,
and what form they can take in a conforming implementation, is
topical; discussion of specific extensions is more appropriate in a
system-specific or compiler-specific newsgroup.

Fine, but that does not translate to "never discuss it", nor to "do not
give any information about it once you are answering anyway". I'm not
aware of any evidence that "off-topic" postings are nearly as much
of a problem as topicness postings.
[...]

But there is such evidence. Though I didn't witness it, some years
ago comp.lang.c++ nearly died because of a flood of postings about
system-specific issues. Those who wanted to talk about the language
itself were unable to do so because of the sheer volume of postings
about anything and everything even vaguely related to C++.

Even here, a number of the old regulars have left, though I don't know
their reasons for doing so.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) ks***@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <* <http://users.sdsc.edu/~kst>
We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.
Dec 7 '06 #47
Keith Thompson writes:
Hallvard B Furuseth <h.**********@usit.uio.nowrites:
>Fine, but that does not translate to "never discuss it", nor to "do not
give any information about it once you are answering anyway". I'm not
aware of any evidence that "off-topic" postings are nearly as much
of a problem as topicness postings.
[...]

But there is such evidence. Though I didn't witness it, some years
ago comp.lang.c++ nearly died because of a flood of postings about
system-specific issues. Those who wanted to talk about the language
itself were unable to do so because of the sheer volume of postings
about anything and everything even vaguely related to C++.
Hm. Then I can at least understand where this unfriendliness to OT
postings comes from, but it seems quite excessive to me. The perfect
solution to a problem usually isn't to do exactly the opposite.

Besides, it doesn't sound like telling the OT folks to go elsewhere
helped. But since neither of us witnessed it, maybe we shouldn't
speculate too much about whether it really was was sim Was that what
prompted the creation of comp.lang.c++.moderated?

And note that the anti-OT postings I'm objecting to tend to _increase_
the noise level, not decrease it. Richard has in any case said that
that the nose level was not his chief concern in going on about OT
topics, but avoiding to mislead people.
Even here, a number of the old regulars have left, though I don't know
their reasons for doing so.
Nor do I, so I might just as well speculate that some may have left
because of the same reason I find this group a bit unpleasant at times:
Unfriendliness response to OT postings and replies.

--
Hallvard
Dec 7 '06 #48
Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
Eric Sosman writes:
.... snip ...
>
Again, I don't care. I'm not the one who wants a strict definition
of what kind of programs one can post here. However in this case...
> #include <stdio.h>
int main(void) {
const char *addressee = "world";
puts ("Hello, %s!\n", addresee);
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

The intent, I hope, is clear -- but to my way of thinking,
it's not C.

Not even a syntax error, only semantic errors. I'd call it a C
program.

If that's not a C program, where do _you_ put the limit for whether
it's a C program? Must compile without errors? Not more than some
fraction of errors? Or do you too not care?
It's an erroneous C program. All the problems can be answered by
reference to the C standard. Nothing more is needed. No guessing
is involved.

--
Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
<http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
Dec 8 '06 #49
CBFalconer writes:
>Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
>If that's not a C program, where do _you_ put the limit for whether
it's a C program? Must compile without errors? Not more than some
fraction of errors? Or do you too not care?

It's an erroneous C program.
Yes, I can tell it's errenous. I was answering what I assumed was a
yes/no question of whether it was a C program.
All the problems can be answered by reference to the C standard.
Nothing more is needed. No guessing is involved.
Which is exactly what I'm protesting against, and it wouldn't _matter_
if The Definition you claimed was "The C standard and C compilers" or
whatever. What I dislike is the the unfriendly and carefully unhelpful
responses to postings, and even answers, that are deemed "off-topic" by
whatever The Definition is.

I don't remember who came and imposed The Definition when anyway, but I
do remember the group seemed friendlier and more useful before that.

--
Hallvard
Dec 13 '06 #50

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