On Wed, Sep 15, 1999 at 03:57:10PM -0500, rich wrote:
> useful for a program using only a single source file, right? Also, what
> about LINT? I'm not all that familiar with it, but it sounds like a
> syntax checker, or some such thing for C programs? Any other .deb
Lint is a static verification tool, which means it's designed to pick up
any errors which can be found by examining the source - much more than
just plain syntax. The nicest free beer lint avalible is probably
lclint, but unfortunately it's non-free. There's a package for it. gcc
also does a pretty good job by itself - using options like "-O2 -Wall
-ansi -pedantic" will pick up on a lot of mistakes (the -O2 is needed to
enable some flow analysis used by some of the warnings). For i386
machines the TenDRA C compiler (packaged in potato) also provides some
very strong checking, although it's probably not for the beginner.
Using a tool like lint is generally a very good idea - it can help
catch a lot of annoying and mystifying errors and also helps teach good
habits.
> packages that can make programming easier for a relative newbie?
TBH the difficulties involved in learning to program normally have
little to do with what programs you use.
--
Mark Brown mailto:broonie@tardis.ed.ac.uk (Trying to avoid grumpiness)
http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~broonie/
EUFS http://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/societies/filmsoc/
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