[luriel]

> If you can find me one C project out there which has headers with zero #includes and forces each compilation unit including the header to include all the prerequisites needed for that header I would be genuinely interested.

A whole OS does this: Plan 9 from Bell Labs :)

For details see the paper by Rob Pike: How to Use the Plan 9 C Compiler

http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/comp

Also the Plan 9 libraries are much cleaner and leaner than those in 'modern' *nix systems, which makes keeping track of includes much easier: http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9/2/intro

[apaprocki]

Well it stands to reason that the Plan 9 code would work that way if Rob Pike made the comment. I'm just wondering if anyone else found this way of coding attractive. Everything I've seen points to "no".

[catwell]

There is even a relatively popular piece of software dedicated to helping developers use this style: http://code.google.com/p/include-what-you-use/

[apaprocki]

That is not the stated purpose of the tool (to write code in the aforementioned style):

  "Include what you use" means this: for every symbol (type,  
  function variable, or macro) that you use in foo.cc, either 
  foo.cc or foo.h should #include a .h file that exports the 
  declaration of that symbol.

I agree 100% with that statement. According to the style, foo.h can never #include anything.

[charolastrauno]

That's not true - you can't forward-declare types used in class member variables for instance.

[4ad]

Dennis Ritchie, creator of C? Ken Thompson, creator of Unix?