From: simon@sco.COM (Simon Tooke)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: re: >Committee Members -> What do you th
Date: 24 Jul 92 13:23:26 GMT
Organization: SCO Canada, Inc.

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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