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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,6bf9d4ba0cfd8cb6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Robert A Duff Subject: Re: Announce: OpenToken 2.0 released Date: 2000/02/17 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 587016288 Sender: bobduff@world.std.com (Robert A Duff) References: <3890C62B.18309585@telepath.com> <876unj$jcs$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <87d7qck6pm.fsf@deneb.cygnus.argh.org> Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-02-17T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Hyman Rosen writes: > If you look at the subject of this thread, you will be reminded that > it started because the author of OpenToken used exactly this approach > in his Ada code, in a way even worse than C's approach - making a > potentially legal character the end-of-file sentinel. Good point. The sentinel approach really is a good one in many cases, but C and Ada both get in the way of doing that right (ie making sure the sentinel doesn't conflict with anything). Except for pointers, where null is safe to use. >... It's not at all > unnatural to want to use this kind of approach. Agreed. You just have to make sure you do it right. > C does not "confuse" characters and integers. It allows arithmetic on > chars, ... To me, that is a confusion. For characters in real life (the ones you see on your screen or on paper) there is no natural meaningful addition. There is comparison (we've all memorized the alphabet in order). But no addition. Or multiplication! - Bob