From 2641035046919939426 X-Google-Thread: f78e5,6294651cbc4b105c X-Google-Attributes: gidf78e5,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news1.google.com!proxad.net!newsfeed.stueberl.de!newsfeed.vmunix.org!peer-uk.news.demon.net!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!stump.algebra.com!devnull From: pjp@dinkumware.com ("P.J. Plauger") Newsgroups: comp.std.c++ Subject: Re: C++ standard life cycle Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 13:50:27 GMT Lines: 52 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 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1124805052 7011 158.152.254.254 (23 Aug 2005 13:50:52 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 13:50:52 +0000 (UTC) X-Robomod: STUMP, ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov) X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180 X-Priority: 3 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Response X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at cs.mu.OZ.AU X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Received: (from fjh@localhost) by mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU (8.12.10+Sun/8.12.9/Submit) id j7NDoRCa012062; Tue, 23 Aug 2005 23:50:27 +1000 (EST) X-Path: comp-std-cpp-robomod!not-for-mail X-NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 07:19:20 -0500 X-Delivered-To: std-c++@ucar.edu X-TN-Interface: 209.99.127.20 X-Postfilter: 1.3.32 X-Authentication-Warning: serv3.gc.dca.giganews.com: news set sender to poster@giganews.com using -f X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2180 X-Newsgroups: comp.std.c++ Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.std.c++:1904 "John Nagle" wrote in message news:X5fOe.178$dw4.134@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net... > 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. Averages don't mean much when you have a lumpy distribution. What this data reaffirms to me is that about half of all programming language standards are failures -- they are ignored in the marketplace. Since few failures slink away quietly, they appear as documents that nobody feels the need to change. (And yes, I know that the C committee recently voted to reaffirm C99 unchanged.) P.J. Plauger Dinkumware, Ltd. http://www.dinkumware.com --- [ 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 ]