From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: ** X-Spam-Status: No, score=2.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_20,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,ec5e801e70a0a8f1 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,6154de2e240de72a X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,ec5e801e70a0a8f1 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 101deb,ec5e801e70a0a8f1 X-Google-Attributes: gid101deb,public From: Lawrence Kirby Subject: Re: Should I learn C or Pascal? Date: 1996/08/04 Message-ID: <839167891snz@genesis.demon.co.uk>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 171974288 distribution: world x-nntp-posting-host: genesis.demon.co.uk references: <4t6hrs$kid@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au> <31FD4510.4150@voyager.co.nz> <4tkc4n$569@sjx-ixn5.ix.netcom.com> <4tqoru$kdn@overload.lbl.gov> x-mail2news-path: genesis.demon.co.uk organization: none reply-to: fred@genesis.demon.co.uk newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.pl1 Date: 1996-08-04T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <4tqoru$kdn@overload.lbl.gov> tonyk@sseos.lbl.gov "Tony Konashenok" writes: >One of my pet peeves about C is REALLY poor diagnostics from the vast >majority of compilers. Certain easily-correctable syntax errors cause >a fatal error when they could easily be fixed by compiler and only induce >a warning; You're saying that the compiler complaining in the strongest terms about invalid syntax is poor diagnostics? I call it essential diagnostic. I do not want the compiler to 2nd guess my intent, it can all too easily get it wrong (even another programmer can easily misjudge where that extra brace is supposed to go). A syntax error means the source code needs fixing and a good compiler will highlight that and not try to work around it. >many error messages point very far from the place where the >error actually happened (well, it's mostly the language syntax that caused >it, but compilers could also be somewhat smarter); Some compilers are better than others, I don't find this to be much of a problem. -- ----------------------------------------- Lawrence Kirby | fred@genesis.demon.co.uk Wilts, England | 70734.126@compuserve.com -----------------------------------------