Re: Do we care if C compilers start allowing "." on pointers?

On Sat, Jan 11, 2025 at 12:12:45PM -0500, David Malcolm wrote:
> On Fri, 2025-01-10 at 07:02 -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > Hello!
> > 
> > Currently, given a pointer "p", C allows p->a but not p.a.  There is
> > a
> > proposal from C++ [1] that is being considered for C.
> > 
> > Do we care?
> 
> Is the proposal likely to actually happen to either C++ or C?
> 
> I hope the proposal can be ignored; FWIW (with as a GCC diagnostics
> maintainer) the proposal seems a bad idea to me: the proposal (in "C++
> Compiler modification notes") seems to be suggesting this is a
> relatively simple change to the compiler - but it seems to not account
> for:
> 
> - the cost of teaching language users about the change
> 
> - the cost of bifurcating the languages into before/after the change
> 
> - providing useful compiler diagnostics if someone tries to compile
> code using this with an older version of the language
> 
> - support for this in IDEs (e.g. code-completion)
> 
> - dealing with smart pointers and operator overloading in C++
> 
> - in C++ this may open up a huge can of worms relating to template
> substitutions, since it (perhaps; not sure) might allow previously-
> failing substitutions to succeed, thus breaking existing codebases
> 
> ...etc
> 
> I don't buy the supposed motivations at all, e.g. "Simplifies the
> knowledge required to start programming in C" ...by adding a new
> fundamental way to do things, decades in; surely this just complicates
> things?
> 
> C has its warts, but 
> 
> These are just my personal opinions, of course.
> 
> Hope this is constructive
> Dave

Thank you all!  There is a definite trend thus far.  ;-)

							Thanx, Paul