From 741232397620129089 X-Google-Thread: f78e5,6294651cbc4b105c X-Google-Attributes: gidf78e5,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news4.google.com!news3.google.com!news.glorb.com!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsfeed.vmunix.org!peer-uk.news.demon.net!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!stump.algebra.com!devnull From: chris@phaedsys.org (Chris Hills) Newsgroups: comp.std.c++ Subject: Re: C++ standard life cycle Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 22:16:37 GMT Organization: Phaedrus Systems Lines: 83 Sender: mail2news@demon.net Approved: fjh@cs.mu.oz.au (Fergus Henderson , moderator of comp.std.c++) Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: news.news.demon.net Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1125181015 28848 158.152.254.254 (27 Aug 2005 22:16:55 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 22:16:55 +0000 (UTC) X-Robomod: STUMP, ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov) X-Greylisting: NO DELAY (Relay+Sender autoqualified); processed by UCSD_GL-v2.1 on mailbox4.ucsd.edu; Sat, 27 August 2005 14:13:48 -0700 (PDT) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at cs.mu.OZ.AU X-Reply-To: Chris Hills X-Received: (from fjh@localhost) by mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU (8.12.10+Sun/8.12.9/Submit) id j7RMGbn6009352; Sun, 28 Aug 2005 08:16:37 +1000 (EST) X-Path: comp-std-cpp-robomod!not-for-mail X-Delivered-To: std-c++@ucar.edu X-Spamscanner: mailbox4.ucsd.edu (v1.6 Aug 4 2005 15:27:38, 0.0/5.0 3.0.4) X-Authentication-Warning: mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU: fjh set sender to devnull@stump.algebra.com using -f X-Newsreader: Turnpike Integrated Version 5.01 M <7y9ouFdz6gbBVVTek6rkWKl0do> X-Newsgroups: comp.std.c++ X-MailScanner: PASSED (v1.2.8 6146 j7RLDlTU013480 mailbox4.ucsd.edu) Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.std.c++:1955 In article , Francis Glassborow writes >In article , John Nagle > writes >>The first ISO standard for Pascal was issued in 1983. The Pascal >>working group was wound up on April 30, 1995, and there has been >>no new work since then. So that standards activity had a life of >>12 years, a surprisingly short period for what was once a major >>language. >> >>ALGOL was first described in 1960, and standards activity began >>in 1962, under the auspices of IFIP. The ALGOL Bulletin ceased >>publication in 1976, so that standards effort had a life of 14 years. >> >>The Common LISP standards effort began in 1983, and appears to have >>ceased operations in 1994. So that effort had a lifetime of >>11 years. >> >>FORTRAN and COBOL still have ongoing standards efforts, 40 years on. >>(COBOL is adding a "<>" operator, support for ISO 8601:2000 dates >>(a bit late for Y2K), and, surprisingly, method overloading.) >>But the rate of change is very low. >> >>The first ISO standard for ANSI C was issued in 1990, and continues, >>so that effort is at year 14. >> >>So, with the exception of FORTRAN and COBOL, the earliest of major >>languages, the active lifespan of a language standards effort seems to >>be in the range of 11 to 15 years. >> >>The first ISO standard for C++ was issued in 1997, so we are now at >>year 8 with C++. This gives us a sense of where we are in the >>life cycle. There's probably one more major revision cycle >>left in the lifespan. > >You are being inconsistent in the way you count. In some cases you >measure from the start of Standards activity and in others from the >first Standard release. C is in about year 23 from the start of >standardisation, C++ in year 16. And where is Ada in your list? I think it might be work re-doing the list in a more consistent from and with some more of the languages to see if there is any correlation. Some of it will depend on dates as well as time as I am sure modern working with the Internet (ie web, ftp and email) has and a dramatic change of the work flow etc in producing standards documents >I think all your data demonstrates is that some languages become so >important to some communities that they are willing to fund ongoing >work. However that work is not always in the ISO standards area. Sometimes the ISO standards meander off in a direction that differs from industry. C and Basic are two I can think of. > If I were a betting man, I would lay good odds that C++ will still >be around and under continued development in 2020. Not looking for an argument here I am just curious as to what grounds you base that on and see if they apply to other languages. Ie is this just a gut feeling or something that can be applied to other languages? There must be some rules or equation that will cover the life of a language. Perhaps redoing the list as you suggest in a more consistent manner might yield some answers? -- \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ \/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/ /\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org www.phaedsys.org \/\/\ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ --- [ comp.std.c++ is moderated. To submit articles, try just posting with ] [ your news-reader. If that fails, use mailto:std-c++@ncar.ucar.edu ] [ --- Please see the FAQ before posting. --- ] [ FAQ: http://www.jamesd.demon.co.uk/csc/faq.html ]