Re: RFC: status icon support

[Dan Nicolaescu <dann@ics.uci.edu>]

Andreas Schwab <schwab@suse.de> writes:

  > Dan Nicolaescu <dann@ics.uci.edu> writes:
  > 
  > > Andreas Schwab <schwab@suse.de> writes:
  > >
  > >   > Dan Nicolaescu <dann@ics.uci.edu> writes:
  > >   > 
  > >   > > Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
  > >   > >
  > >   > >   >     Please no K&R in new code.  
  > >   > >   > 
  > >   > >   > We have no policy against K&R style.  I recently accepted non-K&R
  > >   > >   > function definitions in Emacs sources, but I still do not particularly
  > >   > >   > like it.  K&R style is easier to read anyway.
  > >   > >
  > >   > > It might be easier to read for you personally, but it is harder for
  > >   > > people that have never written/read any K&R code. Some emacs
  > >   > > contributors have started programming after C was standardized, so they
  > >   > > never had a chance to know any different (and its quite possible that
  > >   > > some were even born after the standardization).
  > >   > 
  > >   > Old-style function definitions are still part of the C standard.  They
  > >   > are only marked obsolescent.
  > >
  > > And because of that they are not being used, people are not being taught
  > > about them.
  > 
  > I claim that the majority of existing C sources still uses old-style
  > function definitions.  I cannot prove that, but given the vast amount of
  > existing old software I would be surprised if a programmer can learn C
  > without having been confronted with them.

And what is your point? That we should insist on using K&R? Let's not
forget the starting point of this discussion and stop discussing
strawmen just for the sake of discussion.

And I completely disagree with your point. I won't make judgements in
general, but in my personal experience, I have only seen K&R in GNU
software. I have seen a lot of software that was written in K&R style
that was converted to ISO C mainly because of better compiler error
checking. The conversion is trivial (and as you know, a lot of GNU
software was converted too).

Second, "having been confronted" is not the same as being familiar,
understanding the differences, and actually writing code in the style.