5 Aug
2014
5 Aug
'14
1:11 a.m.
Incidentally, I would say that the use of conditional compilation
is evidence that the code is NOT truly universal, but has to be
specially adapted to various environments.
For the most part, I agree, but there are some exceptions. For example,
bit fields in C/C++ are laid out using the byte ordering conventions of
the target machine. This can make it nearly impossible to write low-level
code to drive, e.g., hardware or communication protocols without
conditional compilation.
Of course, you can always shift and mask. The code becomes
incomprehensible, but identical for big- and little-endian. For my money,
using bit fields leads to code that is clear and easy to debug, and the
obvious rationale of the conditional code makes it a winner.
Steve