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by MaxBarraclough
1900 days ago
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Yes, compilers should warn on indisputably poor style, even when program behaviour might still be correct. This is helpful to the programmer, who probably didn't intend to write their code that way. Fortunately compilers already do this. GCC will warn you about unused variables, for instance. |
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> To encourage people to pay more attention to the official language rules, to detect legal but suspicious constructions, and to help find interface mismatches undetectable with simple mechanisms for separate compilation, Steve Johnson adapted his pcc compiler to produce lint [Johnson 79b], which scanned a set of files and remarked on dubious constructions.
To this day, the best result regarding adoption of such tooling places it around 11%.
I wonder how much education we need to keep fighting for adoption.