Subj : Re: Categories? resume references?
To   : comp.lang.lisp,comp.programming
From : Steven E. Harris
Date : Tue Sep 06 2005 10:50 am

rem642b@Yahoo.Com (Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t) writes:

> How is it that cin can be chained, yet cin can be used as a boolean
> to test for EOF? Is the value of cin boolean, true or false
> depending on EOF or not, or iostream, *always* returns itself, never
> returns a false value??

std::cin does not "return" anything; it's a global instance of
std::istream.¹ Don't bother clarifying, though; I know what you're
trying to ask, and I know the answer, and it's just not that
mystifying.²

> The answer to the riddle is one of the reasons C++ is an inscrutably
> more perverse language than just about any other language, making it
> impossible to understand even one line of code sucn as a simple
> C-syntax IF statement without knowing the entire rest of the program
> simultaneously. Do you want me to tell you the answer now, or do you
> want to try guessing first?

First explain why you're trumpeting simultaneously both your knowledge
of and ignorant hatred of C++. That you happened to read farther than
your teacher in one area grants you neither license nor authority to
damn the entire language, nor the position to goad others with riddles
you can barely answer yourself.


Footnotes: 
¹ ISO/IEC 14882:1998(E) Section 27.3.1
² ISO/IEC 14882:1998(E) Section 27.4.4.3

-- 
Steven E. Harris

.