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...I kind of wish compilers supported nested block comments. So if there's a /* inside of a /*, it would take two */'s to end it. Idk, maybe that would be a terrible idea in practice. But there are lots of instances where it would have saved me time.
You're probably looking for "#if 0" / "#endif".
My favorite error message was produced by the Univac Fortran V compiler, circa 1970: “Warning: floating point equality tests are nugatory.” I pride myself on my vocabulary, but I had to use the dictionary.
"Call me paranoid but finding '/*' inside this comment makes me suspicious" That, Sir, is none of your business.
...I kind of wish compilers supported nested block comments. So if there's a /* inside of a /*, it would take two */'s to end it. Idk, maybe that would be a terrible idea in practice. But there are lots of instances where it would have saved me time.
It's super-useful to temporarily comment out a bit of code, and then to comment out a larger block surrounding it. Especially when debugging.
Sadly I've never used a language that supported that.
The old Clipper 5 compiler had some fun error messages. The two that I remember running into were “Ford Maverick Error”, and my personal favorite, “Carnage! Module name crushed in compilation disaster!”. I ran across both abusing its preprocessor.
I’m so curious, what could a Ford Maverick error possibly signify?
> "Symbol table full - fatal heap error; please go buy a RAM upgrade from your local Apple dealer" Ah, the old times when one could purchase a RAM upgrade or upgrade RAM after buying a computer. Now this would be: "Symbol table full - fatal heap error; please go buy a new Mac with more RAM"
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There’s nothing stopping anyone from going back and using all of that old software exclusively. For some reason everyone prefers the newer software, though. Perhaps there’s more to it than binary size?
> There’s nothing stopping anyone from going back and using all of that old software exclusively. Monthly bills are stopping me. Can I use Apple's MPW C compiler to build for iOS?
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...I kind of wish compilers supported nested block comments. So if there's a /* inside of a /*, it would take two */'s to end it. Idk, maybe that would be a terrible idea in practice. But there are lots of instances where it would have saved me time.
Not terrible at all. It's super-useful to temporarily comment out a bit of code, and then to comment out a larger block surrounding it. Especially when debugging. Sadly I've never used a language that supported that.