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From: bobduff@world.std.com (Robert A Duff)
Subject: Re: Uninitialized "out" parameters
Date: 1996/07/23
Message-ID: <Duzu15.95A@world.std.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 169644711
references: <31EEACDA.64880EEB@sage.inel.gov> <4stagp$3vg@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>
 <dewar.837994885@schonberg> <4t1s3n$chv@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>
organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-07-23T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


In article <4t1s3n$chv@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>,
Richard A. O'Keefe <ok@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au> wrote:
>In my experience of marking student C programs, trying to use uninitialised
>variables is the commonest non-syntactic error.

This doesn't necessarily indicate a need for compile-time checks.  It
indicates a need for something -- possibly compile-time, possibly
run-time, possibly some mixture.  And you get the usual trade-offs among
efficiency, early error detection, and flexibility.

>...  I have found the program
>'lclint' _extremely_ useful when marking because it does a very good job of
>noticing possible uninitialised variables.

So why don't your students use lclint?

- Bob