why no ++?

[Tim Rowe]

In article <slrn9ni35f.mpi.Anders at tika.arnholm.nu>, Anders at Arnholm.nu 
(Anders Arnholm) wrote:

> Tim Rowe <digitig at cix.co.uk> skriver:
> > If min is a function and b is an alias for a then it is incremented 
> > twice and returned. Probably a bug.
> > If min is a preprocessor macro and b is an alias for a then it is 
> > incremented twice, returned, then incremented again. Sheesh!
> 
> In short, preprocessor macros are dangerous. Still I haven't  found out 
> how cpp
> works with python. But I'll get there and then there are ALOOT of 
> dangeros
> constructs.

Well, the behaviour I described was ambiguous even before I introduced 
preprocessor macros. I'd be happier without side effects than without 
pass-by-reference!