From 7822295881131536754 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f78e5,9a6b7da9ba54eaea X-Google-Attributes: gidf78e5,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1993-07-09 07:28:38 PST Newsgroups: comp.std.c++ Path: gmd.de!xlink.net!josef!josef!kanze From: kanze@us-es.sel.de (James Kanze) Subject: Re: C++ Language Extensions In-Reply-To: steve@maths.warwick.ac.uk's message of Tue, 6 Jul 1993 10:32:11 GMT Message-ID: Sender: news@us-es.sel.de Organization: SEL References: <20evjs$b77@babbage.ece.uc.edu> <212tii$5nb@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <1993Jul6.103211.779@dcs.warwick.ac.uk> Date: 9 Jul 93 16:21:55 Lines: 56 In article <1993Jul6.103211.779@dcs.warwick.ac.uk> steve@maths.warwick.ac.uk (Steve Rumsby) writes: |> In article , rfg@netcom.com (Ronald F. Guilmette) writes: |> |> P.S. At this point in time, even if X3J16 totally ignored *all* suggested |> |> extensions (including the ones that Bjarne himeself is ramming... ummm... |> |> I'm sorry... "sheparding" through X3J16) the committee would *still* not |> |> be able to produce anything approximating a clear and unambiguous standard |> |> for at least three years past the originally scheduled completion date. |> |> |> I think this is very unfair, both to Bjarne and to the rest of the |> committee. Bjarne would not try to "ram" anything through the |> committee, and the they would not let him if he tried. There are |> enough diverse opinions and experiences represented on the committee |> that no one person, not even Bjarne, could hope to influence the |> proceedings in the way suggested above. This is probably unfair to Bjarne. I was at the Portland meeting, and my impression was that Bjarne himself is very sensitive concerning his role in the language development, and concerned *not* to ram things through. On the other hand, for many people, he *is* the language's founder, so when he suggests something, they do the ramming. And the ramming is happening, even if I don't think that Bjarne is actually part of it, or even approves of it. This, of course, has nothing to do with the question of whether the extensions are putting the standards at risk. My personal opinion is that they are, and getting the core issues right must be our first priority. I know (since he said so in Portland) that Bjarne thinks that most of the people working on extensions would not work on the core issues anyway, so the extensions will not cause any delay in the standards. I would feel better about this point of view if I felt we were making any real progress on the core issues, and if I could be convinced that the extensions will not introduce more problems in the core. (Templates are a major offender here.) My present impression, however, is that the only way we have any chance of getting a standard done before 1996 is by dropping *all* extensions, including templates and exceptions, and all libraries except iostream and new/delete, and putting all of our efforts on the core. |> This standards process is *hard work*. Nobody on the committee is |> playing at it. Anybody who didn't take the work seriously would not |> still be doing it. |> Ron has contributed much to the process, and the final standard will |> be better because of it, but I couldn't let this pass. -- James Kanze email: kanze@us-es.sel.de GABI Software, Sarl., 8 rue du Faisan, F-67000 Strasbourg, France Conseils en informatique industrielle -- -- Beratung in industrieller Datenverarbeitung