Re: question about linker

On 06.12.2024 02:20, Bart wrote:

On 06/12/2024 00:50, Keith Thompson wrote:

Bart <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
[...]

This is a discussion of language design. Not one person trying to
understand how some feature works. I could learn how X works, but that
won't help a million others with the same issue.

>
That's great, if there are a million other users who are confused
about the same things you claim to be confused about, and if you're
actually trying to help them.
>
Except for a couple of things.
>
I don't believe there are "a million other users" who are confused
about, to use a recent example, C's rules about whether a "}" needs
to be followed by a semicolon.  I've seen code with extraneous
semicolons at file scope, and I mostly blame gcc's lax default
behavior for that.  But I've never heard anyone other than you
complain about C's rules being intolerably inconsistent.
>
And even if those users exist, I don't see you making any effort
to help them, for example by explaining how C actually works.
(Though you do manage to provoke some of us into doing that for you.)
>

 
You really think I'm a beginner stumped on some vital question of
whether I should or should not have use a semicolon in a program I'm
writing?

(Why are you making that up? - I see not one person here who would
see you as beginner. - Although, to be honest, sometimes you behave
like a restive beginner [unnecessarily], IMO.)

 
I said I wouldn't be able explain the rules. Otherwise I stumble along
like everyone else.
 
If I catch sight of this at the top of my screen window:
 
   -------------------------
       }
 
       ....
 
is that } ending some compound statement, or is it missing a ";" because
it's initialising some data? Or (if I know I'm outside a function), is
it the end of function definition?

Now are you really saying that you are incapable of using an editor
to get the context of a statement? - Amazing!

If you see close to the end of a program

   -------------------------[screen boundary]
     return 0;
   }

would you think that this program is doing nothing but exiting?

(This sort of argumentation is really getting silly!)

 
I wouldn't be stumped for long, but it strikes me as odd that you can't
tell just by looking.
 
I used to be puzzled by this too: 'while' can both start a while
statement, and it can delimit a do-while statement. How is that possible?

A keyword (like 'while') is just a lexical token that can be used in
different syntactical contexts. (Even with different semantics, if a
language designer thinks this is a good idea for his case.)

You may be less confused with using Pascal; it supports different
keywords for these loops ('while' ... 'do' ...' and 'repeat' ...
'until' ...), with complementary conditions, though.

Generally there can be four types of such loops, where the test is
either done at the beginning or at the end, and whether the condition
is either positively or negatively formulated.
  while positive-case do ...
  until negative-case do ...
  do ... while positive-case
  do ... until negative-case
(depending on language with this of similar syntax).

There's nothing wrong using the same keyword for the same type of
condition, rather it's good to have it defined that way.

 
Again if you only caught a glimpse like this:
 
   ----------------
     while (cond);
 
then /probably/ it is the last line of a do-while, but it could also
legally be a while loop with an empty body. (Maybe temporarily empty, or
the ; is a mistake.)

...and what do you do in that case? - You complain, you write longish
posts, and so on. - Why not just position your code on your screen
with the necessary context and go on. (In Vim that's one keystroke,
and I suppose in most other editors as well. Or it's a simple mouse
roll.)

 
How about this:
 
   do
   {
       ....
   }
   while cond();
 
A do-while, but comment out the 'do', and it's a compound statement
followed by a while loop

I find it more embarrassing that if you comment out _the whole loop_
that the code *doesn't do anything* and more. </sarcasm>

 
This duality of 'while' bothers me.

Time (for you!) to write your own language.

Janis

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