C's syntax

[Alex Martelli]

"Makhno" <mak at imakhno.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:8t4gv3$81f$1 at newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...
> >But, as I said, you just can't turn the warning level up all
> >the way (to /W4) with Visual C++, if you have any system
> >headers -- you'll get swamped with warnings about constructs
> >being non-portable (of course system headers DO include many
> >non-portable constructs...!-).  The default /W3 is pretty
> >strict... but it does NOT warn of "if(a=0)".
>
> And this implementation is C's fault?

No.  But the desperate need for warnings to ameliorate
some of the ill-effects of its tortured syntax, oh yes, it
most definitely _is_ one of C's weaknesses.

> It's not even C, it's *Microsoft* C. A bastard hybrid child.

C89 compliant, as far as I've been able to determine.  Of
course, the ISO standard says nothing about what is in the
"system headers", since those are totally outside its
purview (you cannot write any application with a GUI
that is based solely on the ISO standard, etc, etc).


Alex