Marcel Birthelmer wrote:
> You must realize that they probably knew what they were doing in
> implementing it the way they did.

No, I think they were a couple of hackers that had no programming discipline
and had disdain for languages that tried to enforce it.  I think we all know
a few people like that, or maybe even were like that back when we first
learned to write computer programs.  Most of us grow out of it.  K+R didn't.

> The above-linked Duff's Device is an
> example of why the switch statement in C is useful the way it is.
> Yes, it's a trap sometimes, and yes I've fallen into it, but I think
> it's worth having it to make the language a worthwhile replacement
> for hand-coding in assembler, which is what one might have to resort
> to in order to achieve such a performance boost.

There was no link above, and I didn't pay much attention to the first
message about Duff's device.  Perhaps if you describe it breifly or provide
a example, I can see what the equivalent Pascal would look like and whether
a reasonable compiler would produce the same code as C would or not.


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