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,f34f1a1939dc0c40
X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public
From: Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com>
Subject: Re: conditional compilation
Date: 2000/08/02
Message-ID: <wccwvhzbnwc.fsf@world.std.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 653674656
Sender: bobduff@world.std.com (Robert A Duff)
References: <87d7jvp3qq.fsf@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
 <39857E5F.33C40014@acm.com> <3985FB16.82D140BB@below.for.email.address>
 <8m6log$r3a$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <398749EF.15829554@below.for.email.address>
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 2000-08-02T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

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