Re: Pointers to "why C behaves like that ?"

Clayton Weaver <cgweav@aol.com> wrote:
+ (re: type declarations)
+
+ What I want to know when programming or looking at other people's code
+ is:
+
+ What exactly is happening to which data in what order?
+
+ Do type declarations enhance or impede that
+ specification/comprehension?
+
+ That is the only interesting question about them. The time/space to
+ specify them in the code is trivial whether you have to spend it or
+ not.


Those are important questions, but there is also the question of
whether their answers could come from sources other than the
programmer. Why do we have computer in the first place, if not to
save humans from the tedium of determing information that can be
determined mechanically. IMHO, humans should quiz computers about the
types of objects whose types can mechanically be inferred, not the
other way around.


Tom Payne
[Declarations are deliberately redundant to catch errors. When I
write perl programs, in any but the tiniest I start with "use strict"
to make any undeclared variable an error, even though perl is quite
able to define variables on the fly. -John]

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