Subj : Re: Dartmouth BASIC to C
To   : comp.programming
From : Jon Harrop
Date : Sun Aug 07 2005 03:08 pm

Gerry Quinn wrote:
> In article <VT6Je.126397$5V4.13471@pd7tw3no>, JSmith@mail.net says...
>> Having nothing better to do on a Saturday morning, I was looking at
>> Kemeny & Kurtz's 1964 manual for BASIC:
>> 
>> http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dartmouth/BASIC_Oct64.pdf
>> 
>> Below is a C port of the first example program given in the manual. Can
>> it be improved while preserving, as much as possible, the structure of
>> the original BASIC program?
> 
>>      if(D == 0.0)
>>      {
>>          printf("no unique solution\n");
>>          exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
>>      }
> 
> This isn't a good use of exit().  The program hasn't failed, the data
> has.  Since the data error was detected, the program can congratulate
> itself on a successful run.
> 
> (Technically the data is embedded in this program, but that is
> presumably something you will be changing over time.)
> 
> So you should just print the above message and return normally.

Don't compilers return FAIL when the program they are run on is incorrect?

-- 
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy
http://www.ffconsultancy.com

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