Comment On Why C-Pound Needs Macros

Hey 1st post :)

But OO looping is so much more powerfull that a simple FOR....

His syntax is far more confusing because it is non-standard, and I expect it's significantly less efficient than a real for-loop as well.

Comical.

[+o(]

I thought that people who like pre-compile macros didn't like VB style syntax such as "For i = 1 To 4"?

Beer? When is too much not enough ?

Beer: The goggles are good but they wear off quickly.

/// The ForTo class avoids confusing syntax of
/// "for (int i=1;i<=4;i++) {...}".

Anyone who has spent any time writing code at all would have no problem with this.

Wow!

This guy should write a book. "How to get your teammates to resent you in 1 week"

1) If he's not comfortable with C# and is (obviously) more comfortable with VB, then use VB.NET..

2) If C# is the only option then get used to the native syntax and don't screw your teammates with some crappy contrived bass-ackwards construct like "foreach (int i in new ForTo(1,4)) {...}". THAT is confusing sytax if I ever saw it. If I saw that, I'd track him down and smack him upside the head.

This is marvelously asinine.

The coder is smart enough to write this class yet is uncomfortable with "for (int i=1;i<=4;i++) {...}".   A great WTF!!!  [:D]

In Engineering it's known that simpler is better; doesn't this hold true for programming as well?

And on that note, aren't lazy programmers the best (smart and lazy, that is)?  They get the job done the easiest way!

Well, the WTF does have one tiny advantage over the usual way (not that it justifies it [+o(]).

The ForTo enumerator does not have the vulnerability that an accidental i-- or i = something in the body can cause an infinite loop. Yeah, I know I need to get past my hangup of preferring definite iteration (guaranteed to terminate) over indefinite iteration but I still havent registered for the 12 step program yet... [*-)]

Looks like someone didn't quite get the joke in this CodeProject article:  http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/ForCSharp.asp

The article was a joke, right?

I can only assume he wrote that for someone else to use (a struggling VB programmer who doesn't understand real for loops for instance).

If you can't understand or keep track of

for(int i = 0; i < 10; ++i)

you shouldn't be allowed to write any code.

What's funny is that for the specific case of a counter where the start and end points are just numbers that don't change, you could do this equally well:

foreach (int i in (1,2,3,4)) { ...

for(int i=0;i

Anonymous:

Looks like someone didn't quite get the joke in this CodeProject article:  http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/ForCSharp.asp

The article was a joke, right?

Chad (the article author) is a long time Delphi/Pascal coder... this is just like pascal.h!

/// <summary>
/// The ForTo class avoids confusing syntax of 
/// "for (int i=1;i<=4;i++) {...}". This can be
/// replaced with "foreach (int i in new ForTo(1,4)) {...}".
/// </summary>

Bwahahaha!  I wonder what he'd think of my use of for loops... that don't use integers!

        for(dCurrGPSDistance = dPrevGPSDistance, dCurrDistance = dPrevDistance;

            dCurrGPSDistance < dNextGPSDistance;

            dCurrGPSDistance += dMileInterval, dCurrDistance += dAdjInterval)

or better yet... (okay, so it's regular C++ but whatever)

                for(strSensor = str.Tokenize(",", nCount);

           
        strSensor.Find("N") == -1
&& strSensor !="";

           
        m_cSensors++, strSensor =
str.Tokenize(",", nCount))

This is like reinventing the wheel then asking your hamster to run on it backwards, or else it will spontaneously combust.

nonDev:

I see now! The "summary" should be "remarks" and
the "replaced with" should go into "example" and the class itself
should go into the recycle bin. No wait - it should just be
deleted....

Anonymous:

Well, the WTF ... does not have the vulnerability that an accidental i-- or i = something in the body can cause an infinite loop. Yeah, I know I need to get past my hangup of preferring definite iteration (guaranteed to terminate) over indefinite iteration but I still havent registered for the 12 step program yet... [*-)]

strongarm:

I think next time I reinvent the wheel, I'll make it an octagon or maybe a triangle...

Heh, or let him try:

for (item * it = head; it != NULL; it = it->next)

Oh, wait, is that what foreach is *supposed* to be for?

--RA

Whoa, this is like so GREAT!!!  I'm gonna copy and paste this and use it right now!!!

--Auto slit of throat started--

Bah, since everything in C# is 0 based anyway, what's so confusing about using

for (intI = 0; intI < 4; intI ++)

??? I never use '< =' in a for loop in C/C#/C++ if I can help it.

Drak

Charles Nadolski:

nonDev:

I see now! The "summary" should be "remarks" and the "replaced with" should go into "example" and the class itself should go into the recycle bin. No wait - it should just be deleted....

When it's deleted are the locations in memory re-written to zero or just earmarked to be overwritten later?  It's better to be safe then sorry...

You mean we should flip all the bits to 0?

Anonymous:

(Previewed, looked good, hit post -- is this a known bug? is it only in Opera?)

The intent is not completely evil, as it allows you to define range objects (although the author decides to obscure readibility with a redundant new ForTo syntax).  providing a function building the object could make it nicer:

foreach (int i in range(1,4))

btw, I don't agree that

for (int i=1;i<=4;i++)

is inherently clearer than the above. quite the opposite.

Look at them and you'll realize that we think it's clearer only because of habit.

The first goes straight to the intent, without getting us into concepts such as <= and ++, that are really irrelevant to the underlying intention of moving from 1 to 4.  The C-like syntax confuses the what with the how.

smitty_one_each:

Jimmy, is the buddy in question a frustrated pythonista?

Anonymous:

The intent is not completely evil, as it
allows you to define range objects (although the author decides to
obscure readibility with a redundant new ForTo syntax).  providing a function building the object could make it nicer:

foreach (int i in range(1,4))

btw, I don't agree that

for (int i=1;i<=4;i++)

is inherently clearer than the above. quite the opposite.

Look at them and you'll realize that we think it's clearer only because of habit.

The first goes straight to the intent, without getting us into
concepts such as <= and ++, that are really irrelevant to the
underlying intention of moving from 1 to 4.  The C-like
syntax confuses the what with the how.

I agree that the generic construct does more than just that the plain old "go from a to b".  I have to think about this, but I wonder if the more generic uses make for expressive code - I wonder if alternative wording (maybe using while loops) makes code more expressive.  I certainly remember to have used this idiom a lot, but at the time I was appreciating more idiomatic programming than expressive programming.

I disagree with the fact that is simple.  Look, I realize that a line of code can't be *that* hard - so it's simple in that respect - , but I assume we are trying to appreciate the details here.  I bet that every time we read for (int i=1;i<=4;i++) we are really reading  for .. i..1..4 , filtering out everything else.  I don't have hard figures, but I believe that a good 90% of the loops we use falls in that case.

You say:

"However, if the language does not provide for it, making up your own arbitrary syntax does not necessarily make it "clearer" -- especially for third parties, which most likely will have to maintain your code."

This is a complex issue.  I don't find that syntax arbitrary.  I mean, you can read it out loud and it says what it does: foreach (int i in range(1,4))

Even old boys like C++ are trying to "modernize" in this respect.  There is a trade-off here between innovation and existing culture.  I disagree with the fact it's not clear, but I realize that for someone not coming from that culture it may look alien.  I certainly found somehow displacing to find names using underscores in java, but I can put it down only to cultural reasons.  Again, it's a matter of culture and tradeoffs.