comp.lang.c - 5 new messages in 3 topics - digest

comp.lang.c
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c?hl=en

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Today's topics:

* Pausing screen? - 1 messages, 1 author
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c/t/8b8e7943a28d1f6c?hl=en
* Wanted - example program to execute stack - 1 messages, 1 author
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c/t/15477a0ce4b244e3?hl=en
* Implementing strstr - 3 messages, 2 authors
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c/t/a3fe05ab352d5774?hl=en

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TOPIC: Pausing screen?
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c/t/8b8e7943a28d1f6c?hl=en
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Sun, Mar 28 2010 6:56 pm
From: Richard Heathfield

Ian Collins wrote:
> On 03/29/10 12:55 PM, Bill Reid wrote:
>>
>> Since some versions of Windows will give them a confusing
>> warning if they launch the program anywhere but from the
>> command line, you might want to take THAT into consideration...
>
> Another reason to [avoid] [W]indows.

[IFYPFY]

No, it's another reason to avoid taking advice from people who shoot
their mouths off without thinking clearly about the issues.

--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line vacant - apply within

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TOPIC: Wanted - example program to execute stack
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c/t/15477a0ce4b244e3?hl=en
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Sun, Mar 28 2010 8:00 pm
From: "Dr. David Kirkby"

Can anyone give me a noddy example of a C program that tries to
execute the stack? I want to create a test to see if an operating
system is configured with stack protection or not.

Apparently on SELinux one can use 'setstatus' to determine if stack
protection is in operation or not, but I'd like a test which avoided
having to find a test for each platform, if a program could be made to
test it.

The The Number Theory Library (NTL) is one application which tries to
execute the stack and causes problems if stack protection is in use. I
suspect this is a bug in NTL, though it might be done for speed
reasons - lots of highly optimised maths code does unusual things.

Dave

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TOPIC: Implementing strstr
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c/t/a3fe05ab352d5774?hl=en
==============================================================================

== 1 of 3 ==
Date: Sun, Mar 28 2010 8:27 pm
From: spinoza1111

On Mar 28, 4:52 am, Seebs <usenet-nos...@seebs.net> wrote:
> On 2010-03-27, blmblm  myrealbox.com <blm...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
>
> > In article <52ae4a94-4361-417c-871d-a72b9fbde...@t17g2000prg.googlegroups.com>,
> >spinoza1111 <spinoza1...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> > So, once more, asshole. How do you know the assignments in a first
> >> > year CS class?
>
> (Thanks for quoting this, I never see his garbage except when quoted.)
>
> > There are any number of ways a person might know the assignments in
> > a first-year CS class without ever having taken one.  Do I really need
> > to list them?
>
> The most obvious:  Most of my college friends did CS.  I used to kibitz
> and offer advice.  Furthermore, having read a number of books on C,
> including their exercises, I have the luxury of knowing what kinds of
> exercises they contain.

But you lack the ability, it seems, to actually solve those exercises
on your own. You were afraid to submit your fallthrough switch() case
blocks, snarky comments, uninitialized variables, off by one bugs, and
other Coding Horrors to a real instructor, and had you done so, and
had she criticized you, I'd imagine you'd then immediately challenge
her credentials as you challenged Schildt, because widdle Peter
doesn't want to take a look at himself.

Many of what you contemptuously refer to as "first year CS problems"
are far too challenging for the usual corporate dweeb to solve.
Corporate dweebs in the 1990s sued a Pace University instructor for
assigning them a problem involving "Avogadro's number".

My first programming assignment in graduate school was to write a
program to add and subtract polynomials which encased the match-merge
problem for sequential files where the key is the exponent, and, of
course, exponents can be missing at any rank when the constant == 0.
As it happened, in my experience, few of my fellow programmers ever
mastered the problem of matching two ordered lists, which is one
reason why today they more or less blindly use a data base join
operation.

My data base class involved learning the then very new relational
calculus of Date and years later I developed a Visual Basic simulation
of relational calculus for my own students. As it happens, many data
base programmers are incapable of forming wffs in relational calculus
and trust to luck and shibboleth to get actual SQL statements right.

An academic critique of software for securitized mortgages would
immediately ask if there is any provision for cycles such that a
derivative ultimately refers to itself but raising this issue produces
blank, gaping, drool-streaked stares in many MIS "shops".

>
> Basically, if I were teaching people who had about the cognitive skills
> and study abilities I'd expect from first-year college students C, I'd
> have expected them to be able to do something like that well before the
> end of the first semester, and if a substantial fraction couldn't, I'd
> think it reflected badly on me as an instructor.

How dare you refer to an academically-confirmed authority when you
have not earned that authority? How would you know anything about the
demands of CS, first year or any other year, if you were, I'd wot,
simply too cowardly to take demanding college classes?

>
> > I find it amusing, by the way, that even though Seebs has never
> > taken a CS course he on many occasions produces paragraphs that
> > I could almost have written myself for inclusion in something to
> > be distributed as part of such a course -- the academic party
> > line about choosing variable names well, for example, or not
> > optimizing before you know you need to.  I guess it *could*
> > be coincidence ....
>
> Most of it's honestly pretty obvious if you do any programming and
> think about it -- or if you read a lot of books on the topic of
> software design and development.  Reading things like _The Practice
> of Programming_, or the _Programming on Purpose_ series, will do a
> lot towards covering the material that would otherwise have been
> scattered in among the basic language syntax.
>
> Also, I have to say, several friends have gone far above and beyond
> in teaching me about programming (hi Mike!), to say nothing of the
> excellent advice and handholding I got from comp.lang.c regulars back
> in the late 80s and early 90s.  I think it's safe to say that people like
> Chris Torek and Steve Summit did a lot to teach me about effective use
> of C.
>
> As to whether it's worked... I have published my latest project, and
> I continue to push updates to the public git tree before running them
> through the internal code review process, in the interests of leaving
> a public record.
>
> -s
> --
> Copyright 2010, all wrongs reversed.  Peter Seebach / usenet-nos...@seebs.nethttp://www.seebs.net/log/<-- lawsuits, religion, and funny pictureshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology) <-- get educated!

== 2 of 3 ==
Date: Sun, Mar 28 2010 8:44 pm
From: Old Wolf

On Mar 19, 11:34 pm, spinoza1111 <spinoza1...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> // * Arduously and ignobly like unto the meanest Hind            *
> // * That knoweth not his Elbow from his Behind.                 *
>     printf("Expect '0': %c\n", *strstr("0123456789", "0"));
[etc.]

This is quite possibly the worst C code
I have ever had the misfortune of seeing.

== 3 of 3 ==
Date: Sun, Mar 28 2010 10:53 pm
From: spinoza1111

On Mar 29, 11:44 am, Old Wolf <oldw...@inspire.net.nz> wrote:
> On Mar 19, 11:34 pm,spinoza1111<spinoza1...@yahoo.com> wrote:> // * Arduously and ignobly like unto the meanest Hind            *
> > // * That knoweth not his Elbow from his Behind.                 *
> >     printf("Expect '0': %c\n", *strstr("0123456789", "0"));
>
> [etc.]
>
> This is quite possibly the worst C code
> I have ever had the misfortune of seeing.

Take me somewhere east of Suez, where the best is like the worst
They're ain't no Ten Commandments and a man can raise a thirst

Seriously, in my direct experience, corporate programmers have over
time steadily exchanged their ass for their elbow, so it stands to
reason, son, that what you think the worst might be the best. Since
Korporate Koders have been regarded by top management since the 1980s
as a cost center and a eunuch class, window dressing, what they thing
"bad" is typically any code that reflects thought.

Everybody in Amerikkka wants to be the thin, "cool", white, blue-eyed
Korporate norm. The trouble is that as a life raft, the Korporate norm
is rather like the upside down one to which men clung after the
Titanic went down.

The code is so bad it's good, and vice-versa, since few people here
are qualified on the subject of literate programming.

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