bbum has some very positive things to say about C99's support for variadic macros.
C's macro system still sucks, but at least now it sucks a whole lot less. :-)
VC++; nested functions
At my job I mostly write C++ code that has to compile under gcc and Macrosoft
VC++. I usually develop on unix and port to windows before committing a
particular change. A couple months ago, I wrote a bunch of code using the
variadic macro gcc extension. Upon trying to port to the version of VC++ used
by my employer, I discovered that VC++ didn't support the C99 variadic macros,
nor did it have a variadic macro extension. So I had to go through my code and
change every use of my macro from FOO(...) to FOO1(a) or FOO2(a,b) etc..
In any case -- have you seen the C
nested
function feature of gcc? It gives you as much of a closure as is
realistically possible without automatic memory management. So using functions
like Apache's ap_table_do is much more convenient now. Of course, not as
convenient as Perl (dynamic typing, real closures) or ML (type inference, real
closures -- including partial application), but still, way better than making a
function object class and passing a function object to one of STL's iteration
algorithm functions.
For STL, I guess you really have to use
the Boost Lambda Library to get
your brain-damaged ML. But BLL just feels like a kind of parody. Check out
this warning
about some compilers not supporting more than 17 nested template
instantiations.
