From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Jul 29 20: 3: 8 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu (khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu [18.24.4.193]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 763AB14DED for ; Thu, 29 Jul 1999 20:02:51 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu) Received: (from wollman@localhost) by khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id XAA15392; Thu, 29 Jul 1999 23:02:07 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from wollman) Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 23:02:07 -0400 (EDT) From: Garrett Wollman Message-Id: <199907300302.XAA15392@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu> To: Greg Lehey Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/netinet ip_fw.c In-Reply-To: <19990730093259.A93194@freebie.lemis.com> References: <199907291156.NAA06494@labinfo.iet.unipi.it> <19990730093259.A93194@freebie.lemis.com> Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org At the risk of continuing this already pointless thread... < said: > The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to > constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every > appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA > statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This > also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change. > -- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers From my ever-excrescent .plan file: There is no _inherent_ virtue in symbolic names. Pi over two is GROSSLY unlikely to change in circumstances where Pi remains constant. The *only* reason such idiotic symbols became popular is (I believe) that [a] bug in the original Pascal type definition mechanism forbids expressions in some random selection of contexts. Do not bow down to Wirth nor worship him. - Stephen P. Spackman -GAWollman -- Garrett A. Wollman | O Siem / We are all family / O Siem / We're all the same wollman@lcs.mit.edu | O Siem / The fires of freedom Opinions not those of| Dance in the burning flame MIT, LCS, CRS, or NSA| - Susan Aglukark and Chad Irschick To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message