__volatile__ __asm__

volatile is a C keyword, and programmers know better than using asm as an identifier. Why do people insist on using double underscores around them, especially Linux kernel developers?

Also, why do people use things like __attribute__((aligned(n))) instead of defining a macro ALIGNED(n)?

>>35

sexps have their uses. It's essentially equivalent to xml, and xml is pretty popular for expressing data that is in the form of an arbitrary tree structure. If one was going to create a macro assembler with macros that operated on a tree structure, rather than just flat textual substitution, then you would need to encode the program as an arbitrary tree. You could not define certain visual cues or certain rules for precedence, because this would restrict the macro system, or make it very confusing at least. Although you could always write a parser in lisp and have it parse a flat list of symbols, but I guess that isn't sexps.