From owner-freebsd-current Fri Jan 29 02:05:41 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id CAA25488 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Fri, 29 Jan 1999 02:05:41 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from axl.noc.iafrica.com (axl.noc.iafrica.com [196.31.1.175]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id CAA25481 for ; Fri, 29 Jan 1999 02:05:32 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from sheldonh@axl.noc.iafrica.com) Received: from sheldonh (helo=axl.noc.iafrica.com) by axl.noc.iafrica.com with local-esmtp (Exim 2.11 #1) id 106AnQ-000O5J-00; Fri, 29 Jan 1999 12:05:04 +0200 From: Sheldon Hearn To: Greg Lehey cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: btokup().. patch to STYLE(9) (fwd) In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 29 Jan 1999 20:01:23 +1030." <19990129200123.I8473@freebie.lemis.com> Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 12:05:04 +0200 Message-ID: <92584.917604304@axl.noc.iafrica.com> Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Fri, 29 Jan 1999 20:01:23 +1030, Greg Lehey wrote: > > I can't imagine how unnecessary parens are going to improve > > "readability" for anyone who knows his/her operator precedence. > > What about the others? I'd like to know that people who don't know operator precedence are leaving the kernel code alone, eh? :-) > Remember, we're not talking about the writer now, we're talking about > the reader, who in the general case is not the same person. Operator precedence is not a matter of perspective. A different person, who knows his or her operator precedence, will find the expression as easy to read as the writer. > Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers know it > must be good because the programmers hate it so much. I take this to mean "provide above your expression a comment that explains what you're doing", not "clutter your expression with unnecessary parens in case you've made a mistake that nobody will spot because you haven't commented your code properly." The reason I'm interested in this (now tiresome) thread is that I'd much rather have to read /* * Bail out if the time left to next transaction is less than * the duration of the previous transaction. */ if (t % u - n % u < d % u) { than if (((t % u) - (n % u)) < (d % u)) { Giving folks the go-ahead to use parens as a form of documentation is misguided and will end in tears. MHO. Ciao, Sheldon. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message