Another debate at the time was caused by a disagreement between pcc and cc regarding enums: are they a type or just a way to declare constant? I remember getting annoyed by pcc not letting me declare a constant with an enum and use it as an int. I protested to scj and dmr and after some to-ing and fro-ing Steve changed pcc to treat them as constants. Not sure it was the right decision, but C desperately wanted a non-macro way to define a constant. I'd probably argue the same way today. The real lesson is how propinquity affects progress. -rbo On Sat, Apr 25, 2020 at 12:51 PM Rob Pike wrote: > The ability to call a function pointer fp with the syntax fp() rather than > (*fp)() came rather late, I think at Bjarne's suggestion or example. Pretty > sure it was not in v7 C, as you observe. > > Convenient though the shorthand may be, it always bothered me as > inconsistent and misleading. (I am pretty sure I used it sometimes > regardless.) > > -rob > > > On Sat, Apr 25, 2020 at 12:48 PM Adam Thornton > wrote: > >> >> >> On Apr 24, 2020, at 7:37 PM, Charles Anthony >> wrote: >> >> >> >> On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 7:00 PM Adam Thornton >> wrote: >> >>> This doesn’t like the function pointer. >>> >> >>> $ cc -c choparg.c >>> choparg.c:11: Call of non-function >>> >>> Perhaps: >> >> (*fcn)(arg); >> >> >> We have a winner! >> >> Also, Kartik, dunno where it is on the net, but if you install a v7 >> system, /usr/src/cmd/c >> >> Adam >> >>