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Re: __attribute__((warn_unused_result)) for NetBSD?



On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 10:10:50PM +0300, Aleksey Cheusov wrote:
>
> is SUFFICIENT. But if CHECKS FOR FAILURE IS NECESSARY,
> warn-unused-result does its job, it implements minimal checks and
> produces appropriate warnings/errors. Of course, warn-unused-result
> cannot replace human :-)

Please, STOP SHOUTING.  We do have lower-case characters on our
keyboards these days, though I understand that at one time that was
not the case.

I do not agree (and I think many others similarly do not agree) that
ubiquitous warnings that cause many small (and large) programs to explode
in length and decline dramatically in readability are "appropriate".

There are other desiderata than checking every single possible error
that might occur, no matter how improbable.  Sometimes it is, in fact,
desirable to produce brief, readable code that does not handle errors
which one knows a priori are extremely unlikely to occur, or are not
actually possible to handle in a beneficial way.

Others may not strike the balance at the exact same point you do.  That
does not (despite what you seem to believe) mean they're wrong; what it
does mean is that you and they have a difference of opinion.

-- 
Thor Lancelot Simon                                        
tls%rek.tjls.com@localhost
    "Even experienced UNIX users occasionally enter rm *.* at the UNIX
     prompt only to realize too late that they have removed the wrong
     segment of the directory structure." - Microsoft WSS whitepaper


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