why cant functions return arrays

[sanjay.vasudevan]

Why are the following declarations invalid in C?

int f()[];
int f()[10];

It would be great if anyone could also explain the design decision
for such a language restricton.

Regards,
Sanjay

[Keith Thompson]

Richard Heathfield <rj*@see.sig.invalidwrites:

Richard Harter said:

>On Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:44:09 +0200, Richard <de***@gmail.com>
wrote:

>>>James Dow Allen <jd*********@yahoo.comwrites:

>>>This post has Heathfield sockpuppet written all over it.

Please drop the Heathfield sockpuppet schtick; it's silly.

It's also a lie. I don't do sockpuppetry.

>James Dow Allen is a well known usenet personality. Just because
someone writes something vaguely similar to something Heathfield
might write doesn't make them a Heathfield sockpuppet.

The problem faced by Richard Riley and his fellow trolls is that a
lot of articles posted in this newsgroup express opinions similar to
mine. There are only two ways to explain this - either I'm using a
great number of sock puppets, or there are a lot of people in this
newsgroup who very often agree with what I write. It seems that the
trolls cannot bring themselves to believe the latter, so they are
forced to assume the former, in defiance of the facts. Their
problem, not mine.

If person X accuses person Y out of the blue of committing some bad
act, with no pretense of any evidence to back up the accusation, it's
worth considering the possibility that it's something that person X is
himself guilty of.

This is purely speculation on my part, but it just might explain why
the trolls are so pathetically hung up on the idea of sockpuppetry.

To the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever presented the slightest
shred of real evidence that Richard Heathfield has ever used a sock
puppet. I, for one, do not believe for a moment that he's ever done
so. I doubt that the trolls really believe it either.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) <ks***@mib.org>
Nokia
"We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this."
-- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"

[CBFalconer]

Richard Harter wrote:

Richard <de***@gmail.comwrote:

>James Dow Allen <jd*********@yahoo.comwrites:

This post has Heathfield sockpuppet written all over it.

Please drop the Heathfield sockpuppet schtick; it's silly. James
Dow Allen is a well known usenet personality. Just because
someone writes something vaguely similar to something Heathfield
might write doesn't make them a Heathfield sockpuppet.

Richard <de***@gmail.comis a known troll, and should always be
ignored. PLONKING is fairly effective.

--
[mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
[page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
Try the download section.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

[CBFalconer]

soscpd wrote:

>
Any possibility to change the standard and return arrays? If yes,
what is the path to accomplish that? If no, what is the purpose
of this thread? Global trolling? Some place to put everything off?
If yes, please, call-me back here asap. I have a lot to say too.

No. Read the following links, especially the first and third.

Some useful references about C:
<http://www.ungerhu.com/jxh/clc.welcome.txt>
<http://c-faq.com/ (C-faq)
<http://benpfaff.org/writings/clc/off-topic.html>
<http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1256.pdf(C99)
<http://cbfalconer.home.att.net/download/n869_txt.bz2(C99, txt)
<http://www.dinkumware.com/c99.aspx (C-library}
<http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/ (GNU docs)
<http://clc-wiki.net/wiki/C_community:comp.lang.c:Introduction>

--
[mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
[page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
Try the download section.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

[Chris Torek]

In article <fu**********@aioe.orgjacob navia <ja***@nospam.orgwrote:

>I get sizeof(tab) =4 [which shows that a parameter

that was ostensibly an array has been converted, as
the language requires, to a pointer, discarding the
size the programmer wrote].

Indeed, and this is entirely correct. The explicit bounds in
the formal parameter are, and *must be*, discarded, at least
in this case. It is not an error to write, for instance:

void silly(char s[1]) {
s[42] = 0;
}

int main(void) {
char buf[100];
silly(buf);
return 0;
}

>This makes checking array bounds impossible in C.

It makes bounds-checking *difficult*. Bounds-checking is not, in
fact, "impossible", and there are a few (rare) compilers that do
it. To do it, compiler-writers generally have to implement what
are usually called "fat pointers", and do a lot of fancy
behind-the-scenes work in the malloc() family of functions (so that
malloc()ed areas can also be bounds-checked).

Implementations that provide fat pointers generally run compiled
programs more slowly than those that do not. Since, as we know,
it is important to get the wrong answer as fast as possible :-) ,
there are few implementations that provide fat pointers.

(Note that a new C99 feature allows compilers to use the size
of formal parameters in one way. If you write:

void foo(SOME_TYPE buf[static 10]) {
/* code */
}

the compiler is allowed to assume that the size of the array "buf"
is *at least* 10 elements. It may be larger, and "sizeof buf" must
still be the size of a pointer to SOME_TYPE, rather than 10 times
the size of a SOME_TYPE object. This does not give any assistance
to bounds-checkers. Those who would like to check all bounds at
compile time based solely on types are out of luck in C. If you
want to do bounds-checking, you must be more creative. For instance,
instead of paying the full "fat pointer" price, you can compile up
a hybrid system, in which the compiler tracks types as far as
compile-time static checking can possibly go[%], and then resorts
to fat pointers *only* for those things that require them.)

[% This is surprisingly far, once you do "link-time compilation".
That is, running "cc -c", or equivalent, simply does parsing and
semantic analysis, not actual code generation, leaving behind a
highly decorated AST or similar. "cc foo.o bar.o ... -o prog",
optionally with "-profile previous_run_profile.out", then uses the
tree, and the optional runtime profile, to figure out where and
when to put in what kinds of bounds checking. Huge swaths of slow
"fat pointer"y code can be lifted out through call sites or hoisted
above loops, so that inner loops never need do anything beyond what
the fast simple machine instructions already do.]
--
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Wind River Systems
Salt Lake City, UT, USA (40°39.22'N, 111°50.29'W) [phone]
email: gmail (figure it out) http://web.torek.net/torek/index.html

[Bartc]

"CBFalconer" <cb********@yahoo.comwrote in message
news:48***************@yahoo.com...

soscpd wrote:

>>
Any possibility to change the standard and return arrays? If yes,
what is the path to accomplish that? If no, what is the purpose
of this thread? Global trolling? Some place to put everything off?
If yes, please, call-me back here asap. I have a lot to say too.

No. Read the following links, especially the first and third.

Some useful references about C:

I followed these links (mainly the first and third!) interestingly to see
what they had to say about C and function array passing.

But they seem to be topicality articles about c.l.c. :-(

So I think CBF is saying that Soscpd is off-topic. Despite there already
being some 50 posts in this thread.

My reply to Sospcd is: The standard is very unlikely to change. But the
discussion is fairly interesting and sometimes you can learn a few new
things along the way.

--
Bart

[Default User]

Keith Thompson wrote:

To the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever presented the slightest
shred of real evidence that Richard Heathfield has ever used a sock
puppet. I, for one, do not believe for a moment that he's ever done
so.

When would he have the time? His posting schedule is pretty full as is.

I doubt that the trolls really believe it either.

Exactly. One more way to cause trouble. One more reason they should be
plonked or ignored when they pull these shenanigans. Trolls want
response.

Brian

[Richard]

CBFalconer <cb********@yahoo.comwrites:

Richard Harter wrote:

>Richard <de***@gmail.comwrote:

>>James Dow Allen <jd*********@yahoo.comwrites:

This post has Heathfield sockpuppet written all over it.

Please drop the Heathfield sockpuppet schtick; it's silly. James
Dow Allen is a well known usenet personality. Just because
someone writes something vaguely similar to something Heathfield
might write doesn't make them a Heathfield sockpuppet.

Richard <de***@gmail.comis a known troll, and should always be
ignored. PLONKING is fairly effective.

I am afraid that asking for a little bit of openness is not
trolling. Neither is pointing out your continual mistakes and open
hypocrisy with regard to your posting standards. You and your ilk are a
blight on this group - fortunately many of the other c.l.c regulars have
seen through your little charade and have killfiled you. People do not
need your advice on who to killfile - I can assure you of that.

[Richard]

"Default User" <de***********@yahoo.comwrites:

Keith Thompson wrote:

>To the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever presented the slightest
shred of real evidence that Richard Heathfield has ever used a sock
puppet. I, for one, do not believe for a moment that he's ever done
so.

When would he have the time? His posting schedule is pretty full as is.

>I doubt that the trolls really believe it either.

Exactly. One more way to cause trouble. One more reason they should be
plonked or ignored when they pull these shenanigans. Trolls want
response.

Brian

I believe it was Heathfield who pointed out that the great majority of
your posts are off topic and seemingly only concerned with petty
vendettas and kill filing. He was right.

[soscpd]

Hello List, Hello Bart, Hello Falconer

Thanks for make that clear Bart. Think now I get the spirit of the
list. I am very sorry to hear that about the standards. Really think
that it doesn't need to be that restrictive. Looks like they aren't
commited with keep the language as much usefull and updated as
possible, but to keep that compatible with old versions and compilers.
I will take a look in the standards and in the problem itself and see
if I can get a real help here instead of claim around. :)

Thanks to Falconer too. The links aren't very usefull for me now, but
knowledge is the only power, isn't it? ;)

Regards
Rafael

[Keith Thompson]

soscpd <so****@gmail.comwrites:

Hello List, Hello Bart, Hello Falconer

Thanks for make that clear Bart. Think now I get the spirit of the
list. I am very sorry to hear that about the standards. Really think
that it doesn't need to be that restrictive. Looks like they aren't
commited with keep the language as much usefull and updated as
possible, but to keep that compatible with old versions and compilers.
I will take a look in the standards and in the problem itself and see
if I can get a real help here instead of claim around. :)

Thanks to Falconer too. The links aren't very usefull for me now, but
knowledge is the only power, isn't it? ;)

The real problem with the idea of changing C to allow arrays to be
treated as first-class objects is that there's no good way to do so
without breaking uncounted millions of lines of existing code.

The C language is already quite useful, and newer is not necessarily
better.

The decision to implement most array operations via pointers was made
very early in the development of the C language -- in fact, I believe
it goes back to the ancestral B and BCPL languages from which C was
developed. This approach has turned out to be extremely flexible;
there's really nothing you and do in a language with first-class
arrays that you can't do with C's pointer-and-offset techniques. The
drawback is that it requires the use of relatively primitive low-level
constructs to perform manipulations that might be done in more
sophisticated and less error-prone ways in other languages.

The fact is, arrays are hard. C's ways of dealing with them are at
one end of the spectrum: leave almost everything to the programmer,
with only a dash of syntactic sugar to help out (or, in some cases, to
sow confusion, as in a parameter declaration that looks like an array
but is really a pointer). Some higher-level languages treat arrays as
first-class objects (more or less), but at the expense of hiding a
great deal of computational complexity behind simple-looking language
constructs.

What could be done, I suppose, is to add an entirely new array-like
construct to C, one that doesn't depend on pointer semantics for its
fundamental operations or decay to a pointer in most contexts. Let's
call it a "vector". Then you might have:

int arr[20]; /* old-style C array */
vector int vec[20]; /* new-style C vector */

afunc(arr); /* arr decays to a pointer */
vfunc(vec); /* no decay, passes a vector */
afunc(vec); /* illegal */
vfunc(arr); /* illegal */

arr[n]; /* equivalent to *(arr + n) */
vec[n]; /* not equivalent to *(vec + n) */

But even if these new "vector" types could be made to work better than
C's current array types, you'd still have to fully support both in the
language. All existing code uses old-style C arrays; interfacing this
code with new code that uses vectors would be difficult.

If I could go back in a time machine and offer Dennis Ritchie advice
on how to define this new C language of his, I just might suggest
different ways of handling arrays. But given the huge amount of
existing code, though there undoubtedly are a lot of ways C's array
handling could be improved, there are very few such ways that wouldn't
break existing code and/or make the language design as a whole less
clean. (I'd be delighted to be proven wrong.)

One of the best resources I know of for understanding arrays as they
currently work in C is section 6 of the comp.lang.c FAQ,
<http://www.c-faq.com/>.

--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) <ks***@mib.org>
Nokia
"We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this."
-- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"

[Nick Keighley]

On 20 Apr, 18:07, Richard Heathfield <[e-mail]:

Richard Harter said:

On Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:44:09 +0200, Richard <[e-mail]>
wrote:

>James Dow Allen <[e-mail]:

>This post has Heathfield sockpuppet written all over it.

Please drop the Heathfield sockpuppet schtick; it's silly.

It's also a lie. I don't do sockpuppetry.

James
Dow Allen is a well known usenet personality. *Just because
someone writes something vaguely similar to something Heathfield
might write doesn't make them a Heathfield sockpuppet.

The problem faced by Richard Riley and his fellow trolls is that a lot of
articles posted in this newsgroup express opinions similar to mine. There
are only two ways to explain this - either I'm using a great number of
sock puppets, or there are a lot of people in this newsgroup who very
often agree with what I write. It seems that the trolls cannot bring
themselves to believe the latter, so they are forced to assume the former,
in defiance of the facts. Their problem, not mine.

I categorically deny that I am sockpuppet of Richard Heathfield
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999

[jacob navia]

Keith Thompson wrote:
[snip]

What could be done, I suppose, is to add an entirely new array-like
construct to C, one that doesn't depend on pointer semantics for its
fundamental operations or decay to a pointer in most contexts. Let's
call it a "vector".

Correct. This is the way that lcc-win has choosen. Using
operator overloading of the '[' and ']' operators lcc-win
offers a true array type that doesn't "decay" to anything.

Then you might have:

int arr[20]; /* old-style C array */
vector int vec[20]; /* new-style C vector */

afunc(arr); /* arr decays to a pointer */
vfunc(vec); /* no decay, passes a vector */
afunc(vec); /* illegal */
vfunc(arr); /* illegal */

If you define an operator () (cast) that takes a vector
and returns a pointer to the data you can do
afunc(vec)

The conversion in the other direction is not possible since
it is not possible in general to determine the size of an
array in C.

arr[n]; /* equivalent to *(arr + n) */
vec[n]; /* not equivalent to *(vec + n) */

If you overload the operator '+' with vectors, you can
add a vector with an integer yielding a pointer to
an element of the vector.

But even if these new "vector" types could be made to work better than
C's current array types, you'd still have to fully support both in the
language.

No. Operator overloading provides a simple and elegant solution as
I have been claiming since several years now.

All existing code uses old-style C arrays; interfacing this
code with new code that uses vectors would be difficult.

Not at all.

--
jacob navia
jacob at jacob point remcomp point fr
logiciels/informatique
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32

[Ben Bacarisse]

jacob navia <ja***@nospam.comwrites:

Keith Thompson wrote:
[snip]

>What could be done, I suppose, is to add an entirely new array-like
construct to C, one that doesn't depend on pointer semantics for its
fundamental operations or decay to a pointer in most contexts. Let's
call it a "vector".

Correct. This is the way that lcc-win has choosen. Using
operator overloading of the '[' and ']' operators lcc-win
offers a true array type that doesn't "decay" to anything.

Way off-topic now so I've set followup-to comp.compilers.lcc, but I
can't see how that can do anything. In this code:

int a[10];
f(a);

there are no [] operators, so how does the compiler know which sort of
array I want?

<snip>

... Operator overloading provides a simple and elegant solution as
I have been claiming since several years now.

I think treating initialisation as assignment and, if I recall
correctly, *not* treating argument passing as assignment makes your
operator overloading much less useful than it might have been.

--
Ben.

[jacob navia]

Ben Bacarisse wrote:

jacob navia <ja***@nospam.comwrites:

>Keith Thompson wrote:
[snip]

>>What could be done, I suppose, is to add an entirely new array-like
construct to C, one that doesn't depend on pointer semantics for its
fundamental operations or decay to a pointer in most contexts. Let's
call it a "vector".

Correct. This is the way that lcc-win has choosen. Using
operator overloading of the '[' and ']' operators lcc-win
offers a true array type that doesn't "decay" to anything.

Way off-topic now so I've set followup-to comp.compilers.lcc, but I
can't see how that can do anything. In this code:

int a[10];
f(a);

there are no [] operators, so how does the compiler know which sort of
array I want?

Because you tell it to:

int a[10]; // Normal C array
Vector v = newVector(10,sizeof(int));

a[2] = 5;
v[2] = 5;

<snip>

>... Operator overloading provides a simple and elegant solution as
I have been claiming since several years now.

I think treating initialisation as assignment and, if I recall
correctly, *not* treating argument passing as assignment makes your
operator overloading much less useful than it might have been.

All argument passing are assignments in standard C.

But if you want C++, no, it is not C++.

--
jacob navia
jacob at jacob point remcomp point fr
logiciels/informatique
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32

[Ben Bacarisse]

jacob navia <ja***@nospam.comwrites:

Ben Bacarisse wrote:

<snip>

>Way off-topic now so I've set followup-to comp.compilers.lcc, but I
can't see how that can do anything. In this code:

int a[10];
f(a);

there are no [] operators, so how does the compiler know which sort of
array I want?

Because you tell it to:

int a[10]; // Normal C array
Vector v = newVector(10,sizeof(int));

I've replied, but only in comp.compilers.lcc since this is so
off-topic here.

--
Ben.

[John Bode]

On Apr 20, 12:46 pm, Richard <[e-mail]:

[e-mail] (Kenny McCormack) writes:

In article <[e-mail]>,
Richard Heathfield <[e-mail] a bunch of his usual
nonsense:

>The problem faced by Richard Riley and his fellow trolls is that a lot of
articles posted in this newsgroup express opinions similar to mine. There

Or you're just lying. Occam's razor, and all that.

And a lot of people blatantly do not agree with Heathfield who is, to be
honest, so full of himself I am astonished his head can fit through the
door. It's funny how one is a troll when one says "Hey, there's no need
to be so rude and obnoxious". He appears to have made a career out of
it though from what I can gather in this group. A more thoroughly
unpleasant character would be hard to pinpoint in this or other
technical news groups.

I'm starting to miss S**** N****. He was free-range nuts, but at
least his bugaboos had to do with C and not other posters, at least as
individuals (we were *all* deficient in S****'s eyes). And he was a
damn sight more entertaining than the current crop of hecklers.

Maybe if Kenny started claiming that floor() and ceil() are
redundant...

[Antoninus Twink]

On 24 Apr 2008 at 10:36, jacob navia wrote:

maybe you have noticed but i have reduced my postings here
most of the technical discussions that i started led to
a flame fest from heathfield and co.
fine. they win then.

If you reduce your postings, then yes, they win.

All they have on their side is hate and loudness.

I for one am looking forward to the next installment in your series on
debuggers and linkers.

[pete]

James Dow Allen wrote:

There are many examples of postings I find far more
annoying than even Dr.

N1ggl3s'

whining.

He greps newsfeed for his name.

IANMTU.

Please don't ever spell it out in this newsgroup again.

--
pete

[pete]

James Dow Allen wrote:

Excepting spam, posts in this ng can be divided roughly
into five categories:

homework/work problems,

technical answers,

boring or boorish gibberish, witticisms, and whining.

That's only three categories.

--
pete

[spinoza1111]

On Apr 24, 11:13*pm, John Bode <[e-mail]:

On Apr 20, 12:46 pm, Richard <[e-mail]:

[e-mail] (Kenny McCormack) writes:

In article <[e-mail]>,
Richard Heathfield *<[e-mail] a bunch of his usual
nonsense:
>>The problem faced by Richard Riley and his fellow trolls is that a lotof
>>articles posted in this newsgroup express opinions similar to mine. There

Or you're just lying. *Occam's razor, and all that.

And a lot of people blatantly do not agree with Heathfield who is, to be
honest, so full of himself I am astonished his head can fit through the
door. It's funny how one is a troll when one says "Hey, there's no need
to be so rude and obnoxious". He appears to have made a career out of
it though from what I can gather in this group. A more thoroughly
unpleasant character would be hard to pinpoint in this or other
technical news groups.

I'm starting to miss S**** N****. *He was free-range nuts, but at
least his bugaboos had to do with C and not other posters, at least as
individuals (we were *all* deficient in S****'s eyes). *And he was a

Awwwww you say the sweetest things.

You should be grateful to have Navia post here.

I generally don't post to comp.lang.c because C sux.

Navia's use of "Dr. Nilges" was found in one of my rather infrequent
vanity searches. I figured it was time to break radio silence and
explain why I've not posted a spinoza compiler...yet.

"Dr. Nilges" is my Dad, a medical doctor, and I don't have a PhD or an
MD.

But...this group is about C. What can I add to its collective wisdom?
Very little in contrast to Navia, even in contrast to Heathfield, who
whatever else I might say about him, isn't an anonymous twink and
knows what he is talking about when he doesn't focus on the Big
Picture or The Meaning of It All, that being my fortay.

damn sight more entertaining than the current crop of hecklers.

Maybe if Kenny started claiming that floor() and ceil() are
redundant...- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

[Kenny McCormack]

In article <a-******************************@earthlink.com>,
pete <pf*****@mindspring.comwrote:

>James Dow Allen wrote:

>Excepting spam, posts in this ng can be divided roughly
into five categories:

homework/work problems,

technical answers,

boring or boorish gibberish, witticisms, and whining.

That's only three categories.

--
pete

If you're missing a couple of fingers...

[Richard Heathfield]

Flash Gordon said:

spinoza1111 wrote, On 08/05/08 08:51:

<snip>

>Schildt wrote Tiny C and
best selling books, but fatass creeps target him on wikipedia.

The criticisms seem properly researched to me, including being
researched by actual voting members of the C committee.

>Life sucks!

Indeed. People can still recommend bad book and some bad books can be
easy to read and appear authoritative.

I recommend that you search the archives for a dozen other articles by your
correspondent, and draw your own conclusions.

--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999

[CBFalconer]

spinoza1111 wrote:

>

.... Monstrous snip of Nilgewater ...

>
Interesting typeface here in c.l.c. I have committed not to post on
comp.programming until my compiler for the spinoza language is done.
As to why it's late, what part of "Asian six day week or you no eat
Gweilo running dog" don't you chumps understand?

Professor Doctor Extraordinarius-Superfluentiosus Edward G.
spinoza1111 Nilges, Knight-Commander of the Mystic Sea, Licensed
Nubility Tester, Notary Sojak, Certified Programmer (DPMA 1972, so

Oh hell. He has spread here. One more entry in the PLONK file.
The above, if accurate, means he will never get back to
comp.programming. Obviously Nilges has no control over his
newsreader (see the typeface comment).

--
[mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
[page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
Try the download section.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

[Richard Heathfield]

spinoza1111 said:

On May 9, 2:03 am, Flash Gordon <[e-mail]:

>spinoza1111wrote, On 08/05/08 08:51:

<snip>

Navia? Didn't he implement C?

He took a C compiler written by someone else, extended it, added a
debugger and for all I know might have implemented the entire IDE
himself.

This is, I think, a lie at worst.

There, there, Edward. I know the facts can be confusing, but that doesn't
mean the facts are lies.

At best, it is (once again) a
deliberate attempt to destroy a person's reputation, and to make the
ONLY topic of discussion in a TECHNICAL newsgroup, that attempt.

It's merely a neutral description of the facts, neither positive nor
negative.

It can be much more difficult to adapt complex software than to write
it using your own conventions.

Nobody has claimed otherwise, dear chap.

You come in here anonymously,

And you had a point, sp*********@yahoo.com? But AIUI "Flash" is his
nickname in Real Life and Gordon is his real surname. Not so terribly
anonymous after all.

probably some corporate s*tbag

There there, Edward. If you can just hold off with that silly playground
talk, you might persuade one or two people that you are worth reading. You
never know your luck. But if you call people names, your cause (such as it
is) is lost.

<snip>

Schildt wrote Tiny C and
best selling books, but fatass creeps target him on wikipedia.

The criticisms seem properly researched to me, including being
researched by actual voting members of the C committee.

It wasn't there job to destroy people,

There there, Edward. Criticising poor workmanship is not the same as
destroying people.

and if they made it their
mission, and if they used public funds, they need to be served
subpoenas for this behavior.

There there, Edward. Serve away.

If you don't like a man's work, just ignore him:

There there, Edward. It isn't a question of like or dislike. Schildt's work
is actually rather likeable - it's just *wrong*, that's all.

but given your
replicated and mass psychological disorder,

There there, Edward - can you say "projection"?

a disorder to be sure even
if statistically preponderant, you're addicted to suppressing the
weakness in yourself by addictively attacking, not ideas nor power,
but people who you think you can bully, here using a standards
committee that probably used public funds.

There there, Edward - telling people they can't use "your" seat on a public
ferry is bullying. Publishing technical criticisms of flawed technical
works is a public service.

--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999

[jacob navia]

Richard Heathfield wrote:

spinoza1111 said:

>On May 9, 2:03 am, Flash Gordon <[e-mail]:

>>spinoza1111wrote, On 08/05/08 08:51:

<snip>

Navia? Didn't he implement C?
He took a C compiler written by someone else, extended it, added a
debugger and for all I know might have implemented the entire IDE
himself.

This is, I think, a lie at worst.

There, there, Edward. I know the facts can be confusing, but that doesn't
mean the facts are lies.

Heathfield?

He just wrote his name in a book that was written by other people...

I can also say that. It is OK with you?

And if you say that that is a lie, I can always say:

There, there, Heathfield. I know the facts can be confusing, but that
doesn't mean the facts are lies.

>At best, it is (once again) a
deliberate attempt to destroy a person's reputation, and to make the
ONLY topic of discussion in a TECHNICAL newsgroup, that attempt.

It's merely a neutral description of the facts, neither positive nor
negative.

Your lies are obviously a "neutral description of the facts".

And when I say that you just put your name in a book written by other
people it is obviously a neutral description of the facts.

What are the facts?

The lcc compiler version I started with, did not have an assembler, it
generated ascii. I wrote the assembler.

It did not have a linker. I wrote the linker.

It did not have neither a makefile nor an IDE, nor a debugger. I
wrote all those.

I added a peephole optimizer, and speed up by a factor of 4 or 5
the generated code.

It did not have a C99 compliant C library. I wrote that.

It did not have long long support, nor C99 support. I wrote that.
And I will not go into the extensions, etc etc.

You are a liar. With the same logic I can go around and say that
you just put your name in a book written by others.
--
jacob navia
jacob at jacob point remcomp point fr
logiciels/informatique
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32

[Richard Heathfield]

jacob navia said:

Richard Heathfield wrote:

>spinoza1111 said:

>>On May 9, 2:03 am, Flash Gordon <[e-mail]:
spinoza1111wrote, On 08/05/08 08:51:

<snip>

Navia? Didn't he implement C?
He took a C compiler written by someone else, extended it, added a
debugger and for all I know might have implemented the entire IDE
himself.
This is, I think, a lie at worst.

There, there, Edward. I know the facts can be confusing, but that
doesn't mean the facts are lies.

Heathfield? He just wrote his name in a book that was
written by other people...

I can also say that. It is OK with you?

You're free to say what you like. Don't ask *me* whether it's accurate -
I'm obviously biased. Ask some of those "other people" whether your claim
is true.

And if you say that that is a lie,

I very, very rarely accuse people of lying. I think it's a very serious
accusation that requires a lot of supporting evidence. You, on the other
hand, seem to think that such accusations are merely a debating technique.

I can always say:

There, there, Heathfield. I know the facts can be confusing, but that
doesn't mean the facts are lies.

Yes, you can say that, and of course you are echoing back words that you do
not understand, that stem from a context of which you are unaware.

>>At best, it is (once again) a
deliberate attempt to destroy a person's reputation, and to make the
ONLY topic of discussion in a TECHNICAL newsgroup, that attempt.

It's merely a neutral description of the facts, neither positive nor
negative.

Your lies are obviously a "neutral description of the facts".

Lies? Are you saying that you *did* write lcc-win32 from scratch? If so,
please make up your mind whether you did or whether you didn't, because
you are on record as saying that you acquired rights to the lcc compiler
and modified it, which is very different from writing lcc-win32 from
scratch. (See below.)

>
And when I say that you just put your name in a book written by other
people it is obviously a neutral description of the facts.

If you think so, then you haven't read about a quarter of the book (over
340 pages). Careless of you.

>
What are the facts?

The lcc compiler version I started with,

Precisely. Nobody was attacking you, nobody was criticising you, nobody was
*blaming* you for starting out with a compiler. They were simply observing
that you did start out with a compiler, rather than write one from
scratch. That doesn't take away anything that you've achieved, and nothing
of the kind has been suggested, and the only person who thinks it has been
is Mr Nilges, whose capacity for getting things wrong is quite possibly
unparalleled in the history of Usenet. Yet you are trying to see this
whole claim (that you did not write the compiler from scratch) as an
attack, and turn it into a fight. Why?

<snip>

You are a liar.

What have I said that is untrue?

With the same logic I can go around and say that
you just put your name in a book written by others.

Yes, you are free to say whatever you like. Whether what you say is true is
something that people can decide for themselves on the basis of the
observable facts.

--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999

[jacob navia]

Richard Heathfield wrote:[snip]
[snip]

>
Yes, you are free to say whatever you like. Whether what you say is true is
something that people can decide for themselves on the basis of the
observable facts.

--
jacob navia
jacob at jacob point remcomp point fr
logiciels/informatique
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32

[Richard Heathfield]

jacob navia said:

Richard Heathfield wrote:[snip]
[snip]

>>
Yes, you are free to say whatever you like. Whether what you say is true
is something that people can decide for themselves on the basis of the
observable facts.

Nothing to add? The relevant observable fact in this case is that you
accept that you didn't write the original compiler. Evidence: in message
<g0**********@aioe.orgyou said "The lcc compiler version I started
with".

Are you trying to suggest that you were wrong to say that you used the
existing lcc compiler as a starting point?

--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999

[Flash Gordon]

jacob navia wrote, On 09/05/08 08:21:

Richard Heathfield wrote:

>spinoza1111 said:

>>On May 9, 2:03 am, Flash Gordon <[e-mail]:
spinoza1111wrote, On 08/05/08 08:51:

<snip>

Navia? Didn't he implement C?
He took a C compiler written by someone else, extended it, added a
debugger and for all I know might have implemented the entire IDE
himself.
This is, I think, a lie at worst.

<snip>

>>At best, it is (once again) a
deliberate attempt to destroy a person's reputation, and to make the
ONLY topic of discussion in a TECHNICAL newsgroup, that attempt.

It's merely a neutral description of the facts, neither positive nor
negative.

Your lies are obviously a "neutral description of the facts".

Jacob, it was not an attack on you merely a correction of fact. You did
start with a compiler from someone else and you have since done a lot of
work on it.

<snip>

What are the facts?

The lcc compiler version I started with, did not have an assembler, it
generated ascii. I wrote the assembler.

It did not have a linker. I wrote the linker.

It did not have neither a makefile nor an IDE, nor a debugger. I
wrote all those.

I acknowledged the debugger as I could remember you wrote that. I said
that you might have written the entire IDE yourself, but could not state
it as fact since I could not remember.

I added a peephole optimizer, and speed up by a factor of 4 or 5
the generated code.

It did not have a C99 compliant C library. I wrote that.

It did not have long long support, nor C99 support. I wrote that.

Yes, adding C99 support is extending the compiler.

And I will not go into the extensions, etc etc.

I actually said that you extended it, not that you added extensions.
Adding optimisation is extending it. I also did not say that adding the
extensions was wrong.

You are a liar. With the same logic I can go around and say that
you just put your name in a book written by others.

You can say that Richard is named as one of the authors of a book a lot
of which was not written by him and this would be true.
--
Flash Gordon

[Flash Gordon]

Richard Heathfield wrote, On 09/05/08 07:07:

<snip>

And you had a point, sp*********@yahoo.com? But AIUI "Flash" is his
nickname in Real Life and Gordon is his real surname. Not so terribly
anonymous after all.

Correct. It is also very easy to find out my real name. The only
difficult thing is finding out what my middle name is.
--
Flash Gordon

[Mark McIntyre]

Richard Heathfield wrote:

jacob navia said:

>With the same logic I can go around and say that
you just put your name in a book written by others.

..... except that he wrote the acknowledgements, chapters 1 and 2, the
dedication and possibly other sections .
And note also that the book you refer to is by "Heathfield, Kirby et al"
and makes no claim to be exclusively by RJH.

Yes, you are free to say whatever you like. Whether what you say is true is
something that people can decide for themselves on the basis of the
observable facts.

I was observing the facts contained in the copy of the book currently
sitting open on my desk... :-)

--
Mark McIntyre

CLC FAQ <http://c-faq.com/>
CLC readme: <http://www.ungerhu.com/jxh/clc.welcome.txt>

[Mark McIntyre]

spinoza1111 wrote:

On May 9, 2:03 am, Flash Gordon <[e-mail]:

>spinoza1111wrote, On 08/05/08 08:51:

<snip>

>>Navia? Didn't he implement C?

He took a C compiler written by someone else, extended it, added a
debugger and for all I know might have implemented the entire IDE himself.

This is, I think, a lie at worst.

Actually, its not.

lcc-win32 is based on lcc, which was written by someone else. Jacob will
be happy to confirm that I'm sure.

You come in here anonymously,

Actually this is incorrect too. Though its a fairly interesting comment
from someone posting as "spinoza1111" which I'm pretty sure isn't your
given name.

--
Mark McIntyre

CLC FAQ <http://c-faq.com/>
CLC readme: <http://www.ungerhu.com/jxh/clc.welcome.txt>

[Chris McDonald]

Mark McIntyre <ma**********@spamcop.netwrites:

>spinoza1111 wrote:

>You come in here anonymously,

>Actually this is incorrect too. Though its a fairly interesting comment
from someone posting as "spinoza1111" which I'm pretty sure isn't your
given name.

While "spinoza1111" may not be Edward Nilges' given name, anyone
unfortunate enough to have read a sample of Edward's contributions to
USENET life, certainly knows who "spinoza1111" is, and recognizes many
of the personality traits and flaws associated with his moniker.
He is far from anonymous.

--
Chris.

[CBFalconer]

Mark McIntyre wrote:

spinoza1111 wrote:

.... snip ...

>

>You come in here anonymously,

Actually this is incorrect too. Though its a fairly interesting
comment from someone posting as "spinoza1111" which I'm pretty
sure isn't your given name.

He has been generating large amounts of what has been termed
'Nilgewater' (his name is Nilges) for some years on
comp.programming. His normal posts are approximately 300 lines. I
suggest an immediate PLONK.

--
[mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
[page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
Try the download section.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

[CBFalconer]

Mark McIntyre wrote:

Richard Heathfield wrote:

>jacob navia said:

>>With the same logic I can go around and say that
you just put your name in a book written by others.

.... except that he wrote the acknowledgements, chapters 1 and 2,
the dedication and possibly other sections. And note also that
the book you refer to is by "Heathfield, Kirby et al" and makes
no claim to be exclusively by RJH.

>Yes, you are free to say whatever you like. Whether what you say
is true is something that people can decide for themselves on
the basis of the observable facts.

I was observing the facts contained in the copy of the book
currently sitting open on my desk... :-)

Don't you think that is rather silly for a valid clc argument? You
are much better off making random assertions, backed up with such
useful verbiage as 'liar'. Facts schmacts, here is a proper whine.

--
[mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
[page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
Try the download section.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

[Richard Heathfield]

Mark McIntyre said:

Richard Heathfield wrote:

>jacob navia said:

>>With the same logic I can go around and say that
you just put your name in a book written by others.

.... except that he wrote the acknowledgements, chapters 1 and 2,

....and chapters 7, 8, 11 and 20 (altogether, well over a quarter of the
book, more than any other single author). I also picked (most of) the
team, decided on (most of) the contents of the book, and did (most of) the
chivvying up of other authors.

the
dedication and possibly other sections .
And note also that the book you refer to is by "Heathfield, Kirby et al"
and makes no claim to be exclusively by RJH.

Right.

>

>Yes, you are free to say whatever you like. Whether what you say is true
is something that people can decide for themselves on the basis of the
observable facts.

I was observing the facts contained in the copy of the book currently
sitting open on my desk... :-)

Facts can be terribly confusing to some people. They are seen as attacks.

--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999

[Mark McIntyre]

CBFalconer wrote:

Mark McIntyre wrote:

>I was observing the facts contained in the copy of the book
currently sitting open on my desk... :-)

Don't you think that is rather silly for a valid clc argument? You
are much better off making random assertions, backed up with such
useful verbiage as 'liar'. Facts schmacts, here is a proper whine.

:-)

Sadly I suspect sarcasm is lost on nilges and on jacob.

--
Mark McIntyre

CLC FAQ <http://c-faq.com/>
CLC readme: <http://www.ungerhu.com/jxh/clc.welcome.txt>

[Richard Heathfield]

spinoza1111 said:

<snip>

You're babbling in a distinctly ungracious effort to keep a
conversation going.

Independent observers who find you accusing others of "babbling" will be
forgiven for allowing themselves a mild chuckle.

Whaddayou, lonely?

No, but it is evident that you are.

<snip>

>You think it's credible to maintain two mutually contradictory
positions? Interesting.

Just lay off the guy, creep. He created a compiler, he did not write
one. It's obscene that you should babble on at this point.

That's not only untrue, but also very unkind of you, bringing to mind as it
does the association with Al Gore "creating" the Internet. The situations
are very different. Al Gore "created" the Internet by not stopping it when
he had the chance. Jacob Navia has done a lot of technical work on
lcc-win32. Nevertheless, he did not write lcc-win32 from scratch, and he
did not "create a compiler" - lcc already existed.

I am very familiar with the lack of education and general culture of
computer programmers,

It's good to see that you are at least capable of /some/ degree of
introspection.

many of whom aren't man enough not to blame
themselves and are, in my experience, too ready to blame teachers and
educational resources.

A poor workman might blame his tools because he doesn't recognise the
failings in himself, or he might blame his tools because he has chosen
poor tools. But a good workman recognises poor tools and will seek to
avoid them. That isn't weakness. It's good sense.

This is because

Who cares? The fact remains that it was a crap test, and anyone
knowledgeable in C++ will agree with this.

<snip>

Most of these programmers are so quick to criticise the content of
courses and tests so as to make testing them or their kids a
meaningless act since they so game and criticise the test that nothing
is measured.

The test is meaningless. Therefore, sitting it is meaningless. If you want
to measure something, pick a trustworthy measure. The Spark Notes C++ test
is not trustworthy.

It was of you distinctly unsporting to so immediately criticise even a
bad test.

Programming is not a sport.

If
everyone tries to do this, and this filthy little newsgroup

You just insulted your entire readership. Not bright.

Not in the got to get ahead sense, no. But as I've said, you've made
it one.

Let others decide this for themselves.

<snip>

FYI, chump, the lawsuit for the 1993 attack on the WTC has just been
settled, in part.

I don't believe you - not because what you say is inherently unlikely,
but on the general principle that nothing you say can be taken on trust.
Cite.

I note the absence of a response. I presume, then, that you have no
evidence to support your case.

<snip>

--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
Google users: <http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/writings/googly.php>
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999

[James Dow Allen]

Has anyone noticed how much hypocrisy there is in
some Usenet groups? (As just one example, many
posters celebrate the bug whereby some old news readers
use opening '--' as a discard signal (even though
opening '--' is a common idiom for those of us used
to writing LaTeX input) but refuse to omit trailing
punctuation on URL's, because *their* old-fashioned
newsreaders can't access a URL, whether properly
formatted or not.)

I think Mr. Falconer has killfiled Google Groups
posters in general as well as me personally, and,
although he's admitted his killfilter is defective,
he probably won't see this unless someone else quotes it.
Still, I will respond to him personally.

Chuck Falconer wrote [paraphrased]:

I want to PLONK (killfile) this guy, but don't
know how to do it except one group at a time.
This is embarrassing, but I'm going to waste everyone's
time to tell the world all about my inadequacies
because, to quote a Buddhist proverb, nobody thinks
their own farts stink.

Although Chuck's post has no clear discernible query,
I will assume it's on-topic here and that Chuck needs
help writing a kill-filter program. Please post your
present effort, Chuck; experts here will be happy to help
debug your homework problems, but need you to show
a sincere attempt. To save time, try compiling with
a "-Wall" option and do pursue any warnings the
compiler reports. Include appropriate header files.
Oh ... *don't* use strcpy() -- any good programmer in
these newsgroups will be able to code from scratch, in a
minute or less, a safe version of strcpy() for you.

While I would *never* want to accuse a fellow Usenetter
of posting to the Wrong Group(tm), two other possibilities
did occur to me, other than a request for programming help.

Chuck:
(1) Perhaps you have devoted fans eagerly awaiting news
of all your PLONK decisions -- even the redundant
PLONKs necessitated by your buggy killfilter. In
this case I'm sure you will have no trouble getting enough
votes to start a talk.plonks.falconer. I'll vote for it.

(2) It also occurred to me you might be reaching out
to make a confession, and hope for absolution, either
for the bugs in your killfilter software, or for a
general lack of social grace. To save you the effort
of finding a more appropriate ng (or priest or minister)
for confessions, let me repeat the advice I gave in a
recent thread: Contact a stress-reduction therapist in
your area. If you live near the metropolitan areas of
New York or California, you will have no trouble finding
a therapist who specializes in the sorts of punishment
and absolution therapies you seem to require.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Interesting that your response occurred in a thread
titled "Wit-to-whine ratio". Perhaps we Scotsmen
have an abnormal sense of humor, but I detected
little or no wit in your post until I edited it
on your behalf. And even ignoring posts by the
Chuckie_B anti-top-posting bot -- over which you
presumably have no control -- I doubt if I'm alone
in finding most of your posts boring or whining.

As just one example, there were several recent messages
in another thread that seemed to debate the relative
merits of "i <= 200000" versus "i < 200001". (Or
was it "i < 200000"? -- I'm afraid epistemology
isn't my strong suit, and I got lost in this deep
philosophical debate.)

I've read many messages by Mr. Falconer over the decades.
The few with semi-technical content are mostly toutings of
The_Hash_library_which_is_better_than_gnu's_hsearc h(tm)
(even for problems where hash tables are inappropriate!).
I guess no one's had the heart to mention to Mr. Falconer
that any high school student who can't write a hash routine
better than gnu's has no future as a programmer.

Chuck? Speaking of
The_Hash_library_which_is_better_than_gnu's_hsearc h(tm)
I mentioned several years ago that this code foolishly
wastes time with an inane and unnecessary division on
*every* reprobe! Have you fixed this bug yet?
(Obviously accuracy is more important than efficiency,
but if you can't find an easy safe alternative to that
division ... well, let's not resort to abusive language.)
James Dow Allen

PS: Several posters in these groups seem to have memorized
a few platitudes which they trot out on all occasions;
that's why I avoided a round of rejoinders by including
the "accuracy is more important than efficiency" truism
above. I think it was Chuck himself who recently deprecated
a suggested beginner's test program fragment:

s = t = 7;
s++;
printf("%d %d\n", s, t);

on grounds that C's mysteries cannot be resolved by such tests!

(In a recent thread in another group, a student was asking
about worst-case inputs for QuickSort, and someone recommended
a *code profiler* to understand why one input set was slower
than another! Perhaps this was the same guy who responded
"Use a profiler to see if DCT speed matters" when someone
queried abut speeding up the transform code inside JPEG.)

[pete]

Richard Heathfield wrote:

spinoza1111 said:

<snip>

>You're babbling in a distinctly ungracious effort to keep a
conversation going.

Independent observers who find you accusing others of "babbling" will be
forgiven for allowing themselves a mild chuckle.

Each of every single charge that he's ever leveled at anybody,
is an example of "psychological projection".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection

I'm going to suggest that you work on an exit strategy
for this thread.

--
pete

[CBFalconer]

James Dow Allen wrote:

>

.... snip ...

>
I think Mr. Falconer has killfiled Google Groups
posters in general as well as me personally, and,
although he's admitted his killfilter is defective,
he probably won't see this unless someone else quotes it.
Still, I will respond to him personally.

Chuck Falconer wrote [paraphrased]:

>I want to PLONK (killfile) this guy, but don't
know how to do it except one group at a time.
This is embarrassing, but I'm going to waste everyone's
time to tell the world all about my inadequacies
because, to quote a Buddhist proverb, nobody thinks
their own farts stink.

I never wrote anything of the sort. JDA seems to have become a
pure troll. His further posts will be treated accordingly.

--
[mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
[page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
Try the download section.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

[pete]

Richard Heathfield wrote:

spinoza1111 said:

>It was of you distinctly unsporting to so immediately criticise even a
bad test.

Programming is not a sport.

I never look at an online C programming tutorial
or an online C programming test,
with any other intent except to correct it.

I think most of the regulars here are like that,
but I don't know.

--
pete

[Malcolm McLean]

"spinoza1111" <sp*********@yahoo.comwrote in message
news:86**********************************@x19g2000 prg.googlegroups.com...
On May 11, 2:12 am, Richard Heathfield <[e-mail]:

spinoza1111said:

>Take your medicine.

Very, very much. Again: I saw Nash get better when he didn't take his
meds. I saw my uncle get worse when he did.

Firstly doctors don't know everything. Almost every drug on the market can
have extremely serious side effects, even aspirin. However knowing best
isn't the same as being right, and almost always you can trust a doctor to
know best.

Anti-psychotic medication typically makes patients rather worse than they
would be without the drug. They will be tired, unmotivated, often put on
weight and have phsycial problems with motor control. You will see an
improvement on stopping the medication. However when the next trigger for a
psychotic state arrives, they will develop florid psychotic symptoms, which
the drug suppresses. So conventional wisdom is to administer meds all the
time.

I'm not saying every psychiatrist will agree with the conventional wisdom,
or even that you have to be a psychiatrist yourself to have a valid opinion
on the matter. But as a patient or friend of a patient it is foolhardy to
advise someone to stop medication.
--
Free games and programming goodies.
http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~bgy1mm

[Default User]

James Dow Allen wrote:

>
Has anyone noticed how much hypocrisy there is in
some Usenet groups? (As just one example, many
posters celebrate the bug whereby some old news readers
use opening '--' as a discard signal (even though
opening '--' is a common idiom for those of us used
to writing LaTeX input) but refuse to omit trailing
punctuation on URL's, because their old-fashioned
newsreaders can't access a URL, whether properly
formatted or not.)

*plonk*

Brian

[spinoza1111]

On Apr 16, 4:56*am, jacob navia <[e-mail]:

John Bode wrote:

[snip]

I *suspect* the reason behind the OP's query is that array objects are
non-modifiable lvalues:

* * int a[10], b[10];
* * b = a; * * * * * */* illegal! */

Since you can't assign a new array value to an array type object, it
doesn't make sense to allow functions to return array types. *That
would make it not a mistake in design for no good reason (per Jacob),
but a consequence of how arrays are handled by the rest of the
language. *Whether "how arrays are handled by the rest of the
language" is a mistake in design or not is an open issue.

This is just the same for structures. They have to be the same size.

It would be the same for arrays, arrays would be needed to be the same
size.

But then, since size information is always discarded when passing an
array to a function, this would be difficult to achieve.

What I wanted to emphasize is that the whole handling of arrays
is completely crazy in C.

I think the problem was that its designers had seen Algol come to
grief as Algol runtimes strained to preserve structural information at
run time on storage sizes that were just too small, and for this
reason weren't about to store and pass dope vectors. In my compiler
for "build your own .net language and compiler" I had to do so since
Quick Basic had array subscripts that could start at any integer,
negative or positive. This is no longer the case for Visual Basic.

C is just out of date is all.

>
--
jacob navia
jacob at jacob point remcomp point fr
logiciels/informatiquehttp://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32

[spinoza1111]

On Apr 21, 6:07*am, Keith Thompson <[e-mail]:

Richard Heathfield <[e-mail]:

Richard Harter said:

On Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:44:09 +0200, Richard <[e-mail]>
wrote:
James Dow Allen <[e-mail]:

>>This post has Heathfield sockpuppet written all over it.

Please drop the Heathfield sockpuppet schtick; it's silly.

It's also a lie. I don't do sockpuppetry.

James Dow Allen is a well known usenet personality. *Just because
someone writes something vaguely similar to something Heathfield
might write doesn't make them a Heathfield sockpuppet.

The problem faced by Richard Riley and his fellow trolls is that a
lot of articles posted in this newsgroup express opinions similar to
mine. There are only two ways to explain this - either I'm using a
great number of sock puppets, or there are a lot of people in this
newsgroup who very often agree with what I write. It seems that the
trolls cannot bring themselves to believe the latter, so they are
forced to assume the former, in defiance of the facts. Their
problem, not mine.

If person X accuses person Y out of the blue of committing some bad
act, with no pretense of any evidence to back up the accusation, it's
worth considering the possibility that it's something that person X is
himself guilty of.

This is purely speculation on my part, but it just might explain why
the trolls are so pathetically hung up on the idea of sockpuppetry.

To the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever presented the slightest
shred of real evidence that Richard Heathfield has ever used a sock
puppet. *I, for one, do not believe for a moment that he's ever done
so. *I doubt that the trolls really believe it either.

In my long experience with Heathfield, most of which has given me a
dim view of his personality and technical depth, I have never
suspected him of using stocking poppets. His *modus operandi* is to
enter conversations, determine the apparently more isolated poster,
and then incite others to turn aside from technical conversations to
attacking the "mark's" credibility which is so put into play that
almost immediately, technical progress ceases.

This is far more evil than stocking poppetry.

>
--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) <[e-mail]>
Nokia
"We must do something. *This is something. *Therefore, we must do this.."
* * -- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

[spinoza1111]

On Apr 21, 6:39*am, CBFalconer <[e-mail]:

Richard Harter wrote:

Richard <[e-mail]:

James Dow Allen <[e-mail]:

This post has Heathfield sockpuppet written all over it.

Please drop the Heathfield sockpuppet schtick; it's silly. James
Dow Allen is a well known usenet personality. *Just because
someone writes something vaguely similar to something Heathfield
might write doesn't make them a Heathfield sockpuppet.

Richard <[e-mail] a known troll, and should always be
ignored. *PLONKING is fairly effective.

"Herr Steinberg" is a known Jew, and should always be ignored. Xyklon-
B is VERY effective.

>
--
*[mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
*[page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
* * * * * * Try the download section.

** Posted fromhttp://www.teranews.com**

[Eligiusz Narutowicz]

"Default User" <de***********@yahoo.comwrites:

James Dow Allen wrote:

>>
Has anyone noticed how much hypocrisy there is in
some Usenet groups? (As just one example, many
posters celebrate the bug whereby some old news readers
use opening '--' as a discard signal (even though
opening '--' is a common idiom for those of us used
to writing LaTeX input) but refuse to omit trailing
punctuation on URL's, because their old-fashioned
newsreaders can't access a URL, whether properly
formatted or not.)

*plonk*

Brian

Why you telling us of this? Please do not pollute the groups further.

[spinoza1111]

On May 12, 4:23*am, spinoza1111 <[e-mail]:

On Apr 21, 6:39*am, CBFalconer <[e-mail]:

Richard Harter wrote:

Richard <[e-mail]:

>James Dow Allen <[e-mail]:

>This post has Heathfield sockpuppet written all over it.

Please drop the Heathfield sockpuppet schtick; it's silly. James
Dow Allen is a well known usenet personality. *Just because
someone writes something vaguely similar to something Heathfield
might write doesn't make them a Heathfield sockpuppet.

Richard <[e-mail] a known troll, and should always be
ignored. *PLONKING is fairly effective.

"Herr Steinberg" is a known Jew, and should always be ignored. Xyklon-
B is VERY effective.

This is how you people sound. Please stop.

>

--
*[mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
*[page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
* * * * * * Try the download section.

** Posted fromhttp://www.teranews.com**- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

[Mark McIntyre]

spinoza1111 wrote:

On Apr 16, 9:25 am, Eric Sosman <[e-mail]:

>jacob navia wrote:

>>What I wanted to emphasize is that the whole handling of arrays
is completely crazy in C.

Silence your laughter, folks, and remember: This is
the very same Jacob Navia who is only 0.5 Turing Awards
behind Dennis Ritchie himself, who trails Brian Kernighan
by only 0.5 National Medals of Technology, and who has
cut Linus Pauling's once-insurmountable Nobel Prize lead
down to a scant two. It is only a matter of time before
he overtakes Ozymandias.

Stop disrupting technical conversations

When jacob participates in a topical technical discussion, people will
pay attention. Though when he makes absurd remarks he should expect to
recieve short shrift.

As shoudl you.

*plonk*