RE: ANSI C and POSIX (was Re: C/C++ knocks the crap out of Ada)

[Bradd W. Szonye <bradds@ix.netcom.com>]

On Sunday, April 21, 1996, Danette & Murray Root wrote...
> on 20 Apr 1996 15:55:36 GMT, Bradd W. Szonye <bradds@ix.netcom.com>
wrote:
> 
> 
> =>encourage the code that works under all circumstances. Consider:
> 
> =>for (size_t i = 0; i < 10; i++) do_stuff();
> 
> =>versus
> 
> =>for (size_t i = 0; i != 10; i++) do_stuff();
> 
> while the gist of your diatribe made sense, this was silly.
> Any 'programmer/software engineer/title of your choice' who can't tell
the
> difference between 'not equal' and 'is less than' is a moron, and
deserves
> his fate.

Both code fragments I gave are legal and they work. In fact, they're both
safe. The programmer who uses the second one is merely not being
"defensive" and in fact the STL requires the second syntax for a lot of
iterators.

My point is that programmers who provide counts bigger than their buffers
are relying on nitpicky aspects of the standard, just as programmers who
test loops with "not equal" are relying on "nitpicky" aspects of that
operator. In the loop case, programmers always use "defensive" code that
will never break, while in the buffer case, too many programmers use
"defenseless" code that may break if the data size changes.