On Friday, December 09, 2011 13:00:57 Timon Gehr wrote: > On 12/09/2011 10:26 AM, Jonathan M Davis wrote: > > On Friday, December 09, 2011 10:19:18 Don wrote: > >> Are there any cases where you're using comma outside of for loops? > >> I wonder how much would break if were made illegal everywhere else. > > > > I'm sure that it would break code, but most people consider it bad > > practice to use the comma operator for much outside of for loops. > > 'most people'? > > > Occasionally, it's > > useful to use one in an expression, but on the whole, it's just > > confusing and error-prone. > > It is confusing to people who don't know the language. It is a simple > construct. In my experience, it is certainly not error prone. If you are > aware that such an operator exists. > > > And while it might break code to make the comma operator illegal > > outside of for loops, I would expect that fixing the broken code would > > generally be rather trivial. > > Sure. > > > The resulting code may not be as compact, but it > > wouldn't be hard to write. > > It would be a PITA in some cases. > > > And unless you're dealing with a programmer who > > uses it uncommonly often, not much code is going to break. > > I _am_ such a programmer.
In my experience, someone like you who uses the comma operator outside of for loops much at all is incredibly rare. It's far more typical to consider the comma operator confusing and error-prone than it is to use it frequently. - Jonathan M Davis