Re: conditional compilation

[Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com>]

Simon Brady <see@below.for.email.address> writes:

> Been there, done that... I think the literate programming crowd offer a
> useful insight here: programs aren't the same thing as representations
> of programs, and what the compiler sees isn't necessarily what the
> programmer should see.

I don't like so-called literate programming for the same reason I don't
like C macros.  In order to understand the code, you have to imagine the
actual output of the macro preprocessor.  (I admit that C macros are the
worse of the two, of course.)

In any case, from a language design point of view, if you think the
compiler should see things in a different order or different
organization than human beings, then clearly the programming language is
poorly designed.  Macros can be used to get around poor language
designs.

> Imagine an editor integrated with the C preprocessor that supported such
> multiple views (I guess it would also have to grok makefiles and other
> source-molesting tools like lex and yacc). 

I imagine you would get into a mode where you hack upon one particular
target, and break all the others.

- Bob