From 4851531672555282382 X-Google-Thread: f78e5,6294651cbc4b105c X-Google-Attributes: gidf78e5,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsread.com!news-xfer.newsread.com!news-feed01.roc.ny.frontiernet.net!nntp.frontiernet.net!newscon06.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.net!news-FFM2.ecrc.net!newsfeed.vmunix.org!peer-uk.news.demon.net!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!stump.algebra.com!devnull From: nagle@animats.com (John Nagle) Newsgroups: comp.std.c++ Subject: Re: C++ standard life cycle Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 17:23:02 GMT Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com Lines: 45 Sender: mail2news@demon.net Approved: fjh@cs.mu.oz.au (Fergus Henderson , moderator of comp.std.c++) Message-ID: <9gHPe.799$5k1.691@newssvr27.news.prodigy.net> References: <1125063434.798372.40210@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: news.news.demon.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1125076992 6567 158.152.254.254 (26 Aug 2005 17:23:12 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 17:23:12 +0000 (UTC) X-Robomod: STUMP, ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov) X-User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.11) Gecko/20050728 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en, ja X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at cs.mu.OZ.AU X-UserInfo1: TSU[@SBE[JTIRVX[]BCD^VX@WB]^PCPDLXUNNHPHBATBTSUBYFWEAE[YJLYPIWKHTFCMZKVMB^[Z^DOBRVVMOSPFHNSYXVDIE@X\BUC@GTSX@DL^GKFFHQCCE\G[JJBMYDYIJCZM@AY]GNGPJD]YNNW\GSX^GSCKHA[]@CCB\[@LATPD\L@J\\PF]VR[QPJN X-Path: comp-std-cpp-robomod!not-for-mail X-Received: (from fjh@localhost) by mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU (8.12.10+Sun/8.12.9/Submit) id j7QHN2lt025633; Sat, 27 Aug 2005 03:23:02 +1000 (EST) X-NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 12:17:09 EDT X-Delivered-To: std-c++@ucar.edu X-Authentication-Warning: mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU: fjh set sender to devnull@stump.algebra.com using -f X-Newsgroups: comp.std.c++ Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.std.c++:1938 Tony Delroy wrote: >>There's probably one more major revision cycle left in [C++] the lifespan. > > > COBOL and FORTRAN stand out as having been core parts of corporate and > governmental financial and engineering systems, while in my experience > Pascal is typically employed in Universities and PCs. Pascal was the first major language in microcomputing. The personal computer revolution was powered by Pascal. The DOS machines used Borland's Turbo Pascal (which, significantly, was nothing like the ISO standard), and Lisa/Macintosh machines used several varieties of Pascal, some with object-oriented extensions. The standards community was never able to get together on a usable version of Pascal for systems programming. Wirth was off doing Modula and Oberon, the ISO standarized version was too restrictive (it couldn't even handle an I/O error), and no organization took on the standards effort. And that killed the language. It wasn't a technical problem. To some extent, this is happening to C++. Microsoft is going off in their own direction (extra keywords, "managed C++", ".NET", and now "C#"). AT&T is no longer a factor in computing. The Linux community is staying with C. (That, incidentally, needs to be thoroughly studied by those working on the C++ standard. It's worth understanding why a sizable community has looked at and firmly rejected C++.) Application-level programming is transitioning to other, safer, languages. Issues like this need more attention in the standards process. This is more important than adding cool features to templates that very few people will ever use. John Nagle Animats --- [ 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 ]