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- Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!torn!utgpu!attcan!ncrcan!scocan!simon
- From: simon@sco.COM (Simon Tooke)
- Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
- Subject: re: >Committee Members -> What do you th
- Message-ID: <1992Jul24.132326.21294@sco.COM>
- Date: 24 Jul 92 13:23:26 GMT
- Sender: news@sco.COM (News administration)
- Organization: SCO Canada, Inc.
- Lines: 57
-
- jimad@microsoft writes:
- > In article <1992Jul15.144839.18494@sco.COM> paul@sco.COM (Paul Jackson) writes:
- > |By George, I think he's got it! A standard is NOT meant to be a perfect
- > |definition of a language that will stand unchanged for eternity, it is meant
- > |to be a checkpoint of "current" practice that allows programmers who care to
- > |write maximally portable code (note that these two features often conflict
- > |which is why standards have implementation defined and undefined behaviour).
- > |I put current in quotation marks since it is expected (and thought to be a
- > |good thing) that by the time a standard actually finishes wending its way
- > |through the system the current state of the art will already have passed it
- > |by.
- >
- > Your definition of what a "standard" "is" flies in the face of the reality
- > of the ANSI-C++ committees actions. In some cases, for example exceptions,
- > they have ignored existing implementations and chosen to require something
- > new different and not implemented in any compilers. In other cases, such
- > as templates, they have decided to standardize on something that compilers
- > had not only not yet implemented, but which have not to this day been
- > even half-specified. Thus compiler-implementors rush to support templates,
- > knowing not what they are suppose to implement, with the result that
- > each compiler claims they have templates, but it is virtually impossible
- > to write a meaningful template class that will work on various compilers.
- > In other cases the committee is soliciting "standard" class library
- > designs invented out of whole cloth -- classes for which there is no
- > implementation anywhere. In other cases, such as name space, the committee
- > decided that existing implementations didn't have it right and they'd just
- > redesign the whole thing ....
-
- By the time the committee wraps up, I expect most of the features being
- discussed today _will_ be common practice in the industry. Or, are _all_
- compiler vendors going to hold off on all features above and beyond cfront
- 2.1 until they are fully worked through the committee? I think Borland
- showed a bit of courage coming out with their version of templates when
- they did, and although they don't seem to work like the current working
- draft describes, I don't think porting will be a huge deal for most people.
-
- > In a few years the ANSI-C++ committee will be [at best] just wrapping up
- > the proposed ANSI-C++ standard. The standard will then go through several
- > years of public review before ratification. The standard will then require
- > several more years before compiler vendors really bring their compilers into
- > conformance. This is nothing new -- simply review the history of ANSI-C and
- > you can see how the ANSI-C++ process will progress! Again, you are describing a
- > process VERY DIFFERENT from the actual actions of the ANSI-C++ committee, thus
- > your statement have no basis in reality as an argument against operator.()
-
- It certainly did take time before truely ANSI-conformant compilers hit the
- streets, but many of the features that standard were available early. I
- remember using function prototypes long before the standard came out.
- To have to wait until them for some of the more useful proposals (besides
- templates and exceptions, I like RTTI and ~const) seems a shame.
-
- -simon tooke
-
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