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From: "Jos A. Horsmeier" <jos@and.nl>
Subject: Re: Coding for Obscurity
Date: 1997/11/20
Message-ID: <3473F6E4.59E6362@and.nl>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 291191168
References: <343fbb5a.0@news.iprolink.ch> <34466EB4.3381@dynamite.com.au>
 <6275dt$agm$3@news.on> <344BCED0.2D51@dynamite.com.au>
 <62tpap$7gh$1@darla.visi.com> <3470EF6E.F74@lysator.liu.se>
 <64qsf0$ccc@dfw-ixnews11.ix.netcom.com> <3474BF28.2F9F@dynamite.com.au>
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Organization: AND Software B.V. Rotterdam
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++
Date: 1997-11-20T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


firewind wrote:
| Alan E & Carmel J Brain <aebrain@dynamite.com.au> wrote:
| > firewind wrote:

| > > if(!to && !(to = malloc(sizeof *to)))) return(NULL);
| > >
| > > For 'verbose' code this would be written:
| > >
| > > if(!to) {
| > >         if(!to = malloc(sizeof *to)) {
| > >                 return(NULL);
| > >         }
| > > }
| > >
| > > I find this unacceptable. The first form is understood well enough
anyway
| > > The if(foo() || bar()) construct may seem obfuscated and weird to
you, it 
| > > is the way the logic of some people's minds work.
 
| > No further evidence, I rest my case.
| > Would anyone in comp.lang.c like to comment?
 
| From the new Subject: I assume you have drawn the conclusion that I
code in
| the above manner (the first 'weird' if(), I don't use the second, but
the
| point was that 'style imperialism' is stupid) to purposely obfuscate.
Nothing
| can be further from the truth. Obfuscated code can be written in
absolutely
| any language, by absolutely everyone. In a bad spot, a decidedly
'clean'
| coder can churn out a potful of spaghetti code.

Absolutely true. I don't want to start a 'style war' but I do want to
comment;
I tend to accept any style of code that I can _pronounce_; for example,
your first
if statement above doesn't look weird or obfuscated to me at all; to me,
it reads: if I don't have a 'to' and if I can't get a 'to' I'm out of
here.

As a matter of fact I use (the negation of) this construct regularly:
if I have a 'to' or if I can get a 'to', do the job:

	if (to || (to= malloc(sizeof *to)))
		<do the job>
	else
		return NULL;

it saves me a couple of 'not's and it shows a bit more positive attitude
;-)

kind regards,

Jos aka jos@and.nl