wouter van ooijen wrote:
> I don't think we will ever agree on this :) but:
>
> What exactly was your opinion on assembly language?

The goals of assembly language and a high level language are very different.
I agree that the very flexibility that is essential to assembler also makes
it difficult to prohibit or discourage irresponsible programming.  Although
it's possible to make a mess in any language, and especially so if the
programmer has the attitude that he is using a high level language and that
therefore less care is required.  And of course you can write clear and well
constructed programs in assembler too.  Good programming discipline is
essential with all languages.

> I agree that it might be hard to find an environment that favours
> the 1-liner in this particular case, but I won't agree with a
> blanket statement that it is always wrong.

Maybe.  But I think the common downside versus the rare upside together with
good alternatives in the rare cases makes it advantageous to disallow it
altogether.

> Certain (more or less obscure) C constructs are an easily recoginsed
> 'idom' in certain circles.

Yes, but this is only because they are allowed in the language.  We are
talking about overall desirable language design, not how hard it would be
for existing programmers used to one language to convert to another.


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