Wish: Variable Not Used Warning

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Nick Sabalausky" <a at a.a> wrote in message 
news:g51qgu$1f63$1 at digitalmars.com...
> "Walter Bright" <newshound1 at digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
> news:g51k8s$102f$1 at digitalmars.com...
>> The difference between lint and a compiler is people know lint is not a 
>> compiler and do not worry about lint's complaints. Warnings in the 
>> compiler are treated, in reality, like programming errors.
>>
>
> Ahh, now this appears to be the root of our differing opinions on this. I 
> think I understand your reasoning behind this now, even though I still 
> don't agree with it.
>
> It sounds like (previously unknown to me) there's a rift between the 
> reality of warnings and the perceptions that many programmers (excluding 
> us) have about warnings. As I understand it, you consider it more 
> important to design around common perceptions of warnings, even if they're 
> mistaken perceptions (such as warnings, by definition, not actually being 
> errors). My disagreement is that I consider it better to design around the 
> realities, and use a more education-based approach (I don't necessarily 
> mean school) to address misperceptions. Is this a fair assessment of your 
> stance, or am I still misunderstanding?
>
> If this is so, then our disagreement on this runs deeper than just the 
> warnings themselves and exists on more of a "design-values" level, so I 
> won't push this any further than to just simply note my disagreement.

I'd also like to note one other thing...Umm, this might come across sounding 
harsh, so please understand I don't in any way intend it as any sort of 
personal or professional disrespect/insult/sarcasm/etc.:

It's just that the way I've always felt about lint tools is, I've always 
seen lint tools as a sign of popular languages and compilers doing an 
insufficient job of catching easily-overlooked programming mistakes. (For 
instance, if I were going to use a language that allows implicit variable 
declarations (makes hidden mistakes easy), *and* there was no way to prevent 
the compiler/interpreter from remaining silent about it when it happened (a 
mere band-aid in the case of the implicit declaration problem, but a very 
welcome band-aid nonetheless), then I would grunble about it and try to find 
a lint tool that plugged that bug-hole. This, of course, goes back to the 
"good/bad redundancy in lanugage design" point that you've made.)