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<OT> Re: #define BYTES *8

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On 8/30/2012 7:08 PM, Kenneth Brody wrote:
> On 8/29/2012 11:36 AM, Eric Sosman wrote:
>> On 8/29/2012 11:10 AM, Kenneth Brody wrote:
> [...]
>>> Perhaps:
>>>
>>>     #define FOREVER for(;;)
>>>
>>> Not that I'd ever use such a thing, of course.  Still clever.  Still
>>> "not really a good thing to do".
>>
>>      In my own young and foolish days, I used
>>
>>      #define until(x) while(!(x))
>>
>> believing it improved readability.  Foolishness never leaves us
>> altogether, but youth and inexperience do -- and clevernesses of
>> this kind went into my personal "Wish I'd never done that" file
>> long ago.  (Right next to the FORTRAN II code that avoided an IF
>> by using a computed GOTO.)
>
> Ah.  You must have read that famous article "If Considered Harmful".

<off-topic>

     Perhaps you overlooked the Roman numeral.  In those days,
FORTRAN's only IF had the form

	IF ( expression ) n1, n2, n3

... with the meaning: "GOTO statement number `n1', `n2', or `n3'
as `expression' is negative, zero, or positive."  Thus

	IF (X) 1, 2, 1

... was a zero/nonzero test,

	IF (X) 1, 2, 2

... was a negative/nonnegative test, and so on.  IF(X) 1,1,1
was a plain old unconditional GOTO 1 in disguise.

     FORTRAN IV added an alternate kind of IF that was closer to
what we find in C -- but only a little bit closer.

<super-off-topic>

     Every now and then -- not often, but every now and then --
I find myself longing for the good old three-way IF.  A binary
search needs two of these newfangled two-way `if' tests where
one three-way test would suffice, and a similar situation crops
up in the inner loop of Heapsort.  Ah, well: Change (even change
for the better) always involves loss.

</super-off-topic>
</off-topic>
</maudlin-reminiscence>

-- 
Eric Sosman
esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid

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#define BYTES *8 JohnF <john@please.see.sig.for.email.com> - 2012-08-28 07:44 +0000
  Re: #define BYTES *8 Mark Bluemel <mark_bluemel@pobox.com> - 2012-08-28 09:07 +0100
  Re: #define BYTES *8 Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-08-28 01:38 -0700
    Re: #define BYTES *8 JohnF <john@please.see.sig.for.email.com> - 2012-08-28 09:21 +0000
      Re: #define BYTES *8 "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-08-28 12:34 +0100
        Re: #define BYTES *8 JohnF <john@please.see.sig.for.email.com> - 2012-08-28 12:23 +0000
    Re: #define BYTES *8 Kenneth Brody <kenbrody@spamcop.net> - 2012-08-29 11:10 -0400
      Re: #define BYTES *8 Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-08-29 11:36 -0400
        Re: #define BYTES *8 Adrian Ratnapala <raka@scooter.fritz.box> - 2012-08-30 04:01 +0000
        Re: #define BYTES *8 Kenneth Brody <kenbrody@spamcop.net> - 2012-08-30 19:08 -0400
          <OT> Re: #define BYTES *8 Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-08-30 21:30 -0400
            Re: <OT> Re: #define BYTES *8 Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2012-08-31 02:49 +0100
              Re: <OT> Re: #define BYTES *8 JohnF <john@please.see.sig.for.email.com> - 2012-08-31 08:32 +0000
                Re: <OT> Re: #define BYTES *8 88888 Dihedral <dihedral88888@googlemail.com> - 2012-08-31 03:55 -0700
              Re: <OT> Re: #define BYTES *8 "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-08-31 10:58 +0100
                Re: <OT> Re: #define BYTES *8 Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2012-08-31 11:53 +0100
                Re: <OT> Re: #define BYTES *8 "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-08-31 12:39 +0100
                Re: <OT> Re: #define BYTES *8 Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2012-08-31 15:35 +0100
                Re: <OT> Re: #define BYTES *8 "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-08-31 19:15 +0100
                Re: <OT> Re: #define BYTES *8 Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-08-31 14:39 -0400
            Re: <OT> Re: #define BYTES *8 Phil Carmody <thefatphil_demunged@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-09-06 15:14 +0300
  Re: #define BYTES *8 "Scott Fluhrer" <sfluhrer@ix.netcom.com> - 2012-08-28 12:24 -0400
    Re: #define BYTES *8 "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-08-28 17:44 +0100
    Re: #define BYTES *8 Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-08-28 14:42 -0700
  Re: #define BYTES *8 pete <pfiland@mindspring.com> - 2012-08-28 23:47 -0400
  Re: #define BYTES *8 Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2012-08-29 22:20 -0600
  Re: #define BYTES *8 John Bode <jfbode1029@gmail.com> - 2012-09-06 15:32 -0700
    Re: #define BYTES *8 pete <pfiland@mindspring.com> - 2012-09-06 20:58 -0400
      Re: #define BYTES *8 Eric Sosman <esosman@ieee-dot-org.invalid> - 2012-09-06 21:13 -0400
      Re: #define BYTES *8 Öö Tiib <ootiib@hot.ee> - 2012-09-07 03:00 -0700
        Re: #define BYTES *8 pete <pfiland@mindspring.com> - 2012-09-08 10:00 -0400
    Re: #define BYTES *8 "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-09-07 02:22 +0100
      Re: #define BYTES *8 John Bode <jfbode1029@gmail.com> - 2012-09-07 05:55 -0700
  Re: #define BYTES *8 Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2012-09-07 14:20 -0700

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