Splitter quiz / survey

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:36:55 -0400, Sean Kelly <sean at invisibleduck.org>  
wrote:

> == Quote from Andrei Alexandrescu (SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org)'s  
> article
>> For the same reason, C accepts enum X { a, b, } but not ,a ,b.
>> Mechanically generating enum values is easier if each value has a
>> trailing comma.
>
> This has always seemed weird to me.  C doesn't accept a trailing comma
> in function parameter lists.  I don't mind it accepting commas in enum
> blocks mostly because leaving a trailing comma in multi-line blocks
> can mean a smaller diff if I want to append new elements to the block
> later, but it certainly isn't sufficient to justify the syntax IMO.

You know, this just reminded me of something.  What is the purpose of  
allowing trailing commas in enums in C?  mostly for this:

enum {
   val1,
   val2,
#ifdef INCLUDE_VAL_3
   val3
#endif
};

Which would require some weird preprocessor logic for val2 if a trailing  
comma weren't allowed

But hasn't this behavior been *specifically* frowned upon by Walter due to  
it's lack of maintainability?  In fact, I'd say that except for C  
portability (which is becoming more and more a moot argument), we could  
get rid of allowing the comma at the end of the last enum definition.  In  
fact, it would discourage the undesirable behavior of versioning around  
elements versus versioning around the enum.

I know the argument is over for splitter, but I just thought this was an  
interesting connection to explore.

-Steve