Re: Versioning (was Re: [Tinycc-devel] TCC 0.9.25 is out)

[lostgallifreyan]

"Christian Jullien" <address@hidden> wrote:
(22/05/2009 11:16)

>
>Anton,
>
>It's ok to have a TCC_VERSION human readable but it's also *very* important
>to have computer readable cste to adapt code depending on a specific version
>if you (or someone else) have to support different versions.
>
>#if defined(__TINYC__)
>#if (__TINYC__ == 1)
>/* 0.9.25 or below, XXX feature was missing, use YYY instead but with a
>lower precision */
>#elif (__TINYC__ >= 926 || __TINYC__ <= 928)
>/* XXX was implemented but hangs if argument is negative ... */
>#else
>/* 0.9.29 or above, XXX is fixed for good */
>#endif
>#else
>/* ANSI C default behavior */
>#endif
>

If an arithmetical comparison is to be made, why not first treat the value as a 
string then strip out all but the digits and convert to number? It's presumably 
not something that must be done often in fast loops so it won't ask a lot to do 
that. It depends strongly on human conventions either way, so I back Anton's 
point that the more humanly readable it is, the better. We make machines to 
help us, no? The other way (along a rather far-fetched continuum) lies the 
Borg, or the Matrix. :) More to the point, keeping things as humanly readable 
as possible is the best way to avoid errors, and to reduce over-familiar 
questions from newcomers.