On 30/05/2026 13:29, Dan Cross wrote:In article <10vd1tu$ekvl$1@dont-email.me>, Bart <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:>On 29/05/2026 21:56, Keith Thompson wrote:[snip]>
Upthread, you asked a question:
>
And then the point becomes, if you always add the parentheses, what
was the point of having that particular precedence level?
>
You've made it clear that you were never interested in an answer.
You said this:
>
"You're asking why C is designed the way it is. We could waste a
great deal of time and effort answering that for you. There are
numerous documents about the design and history of C, and of
its ancestor languages. I could provide you with links."
>
Actually I'm not asking why C is like that. We're already there.
>
I'm saying that there is no value in those extra levels, some people
think is, and I'm arging about that. I was replying to tTh.
>
As for my question, what /is/ the point? I'm still waiting!
To clarify: the question is, what is the point of those levels?
How is that different from asking "why C is like that"?
My question is actually independent of C or its history.
>
I accept those levels exist. I was asking do they currently serve a
useful purpose.
That is a distinction without a difference: I do not see how the
two can be separated from one another.
The useful purpose the C rules serve is allowing existing code
to compile unmodified; the reason that existing code was written
that way is because that's how the language was defined; the
language was defined that way due to the aforementioned history.
If not, people can choose to ignore those them when writing C code, for
example like this where all () are technically superfluous:
>
crcu32 = (crcu32 >> 4) ^ s_crc32[(crcu32 & 0xF) ^ (b & 0xF)];
>
And they can choose to not adopt them when devising new languages,
however many still do faithfully recreate the same pattern, with a few
notable exceptions such as Go lang.
Languages should, presumably, do what makes sense for them.
Lots of languages echo parts of C's syntax where that has proven
to be convenient and popular; curly braces for grouping might be
an example there. Others have not, or have purposely discarded
parts of C syntax that have proven awkward or unpopular. An
example there might be the variable declaration syntax, or the
structure of `typedef`.
I can't think of many languages that keep the exact same parsing
rules with respect to operator precedence. You mentioned Go;
neither Rust nor Zig follow C's rules, either.
- Dan C.
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