From: Henrik Backe <backe_at_swipnet.se>
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 11:06:09 +0100

>"Björn Stenberg" wrote in message
>>Henrik Backe wrote:
>> Not everyone are are experienced C programmers!

> No, but they can become if exposed to real C code.
True only if C is language you are mainly exposed to. I've been exposed to
several languages during the years
and the only one I can call myself experienced with is Cobol (my first
language). Since my Cobol days I've not
been able to mainly focus on a single environment (software or hardware)
simply because I've been working in
an mixed environment since the early 90's.

> This is a classic debate, had in every project (sometimes repetedly). What
it really boils down to is: Do we cater to the experienced or the
inexperienced programmers?
>
True, and in this case the answer is very easy, cater to the core members of
the project.

> The experienced programmers knows immediately what "if(somefunction())"
does.
> The inexperienced might not, and need to ask or look it up.
>
> However, neither the experienced programmers nor the inexperienced one
knows immediately what "if(success(somefunction()))" does. They both have to
look it
> up!
Extremely true.
I'm very much against what Linus calls hidden magic, the only thing I wanted
to do was to point out that
if (foo()!=0) is easily readable for both experienced and inexperienced
programmers

/Henrik
Received on 2003-03-14