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Re: [using gcc book] ch10.11 Certain Changes We Don't Want to Make
Chris Devers <cdevers@pobox.com> writes:
> On Mon, 25 Aug 2003, Zack Weinberg wrote:
>
>> Well, the paragraph does need to justify the policy decision not to
>> include this feature, so:
>>
>> * Warning when a non-void function value is ignored.
>>
>> We feel that there are legitimate reasons to ignore function
>> return values, and that writing @code{(void)} before every
>> function call whose result is intentionally ignored makes the
>> program harder to read for little benefit.
>
> Clear & to the point. Very good.
Honestly, I think Russ's suggestion downthread is better, as it makes
clear *why* (void) would occur often enough to make the program hard
to read if we added this warning.
> My only quibble is the first person plural -- would it be fair to say "The
> GCC development group" instead of "we"? The GNU style guidelines I've
> been asked to go by discourage any use of the first person, so a big part
> of what I've been working on has been rephrasing sentences this way.
Mm. I don't like that. I think the first person *singular* should be
avoided, but avoiding the first person plural just makes for stilted
prose in my opinion.
(However, if mentally substituting 'the GCC development group' for
'we' produces an assertion about our collective opinion that doesn't
seem tenable, there's a problem.)
zw