From 8596504442266339363 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 109fba,9a6b7da9ba54eaea X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: f78e5,9a6b7da9ba54eaea X-Google-Attributes: gidf78e5,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1993-06-22 07:45:14 PST Xref: gmd.de comp.lang.c++:24908 comp.std.c++:2842 Path: gmd.de!newsserver.jvnc.net!howland.reston.ans.net!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!uwm.edu!linac!att!att!allegra!alice!ark From: ark@alice.att.com (Andrew Koenig) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.std.c++ Subject: Re: C++ Language Extensions Message-ID: <25807@alice.att.com> Date: 22 Jun 93 14:14:17 GMT Article-I.D.: alice.25807 References: <1993Jun14.150349.778@udel.edu> <1993Jun15.214156.3591@mole-end.matawan.nj.us> Reply-To: ark@alice.UUCP () Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ Lines: 32 In article rfg@netcom.com (Ronald F. Guilmette) writes: > Now don't get me wrong. I like a good Rolls-Royce as much as the next guy, > but given my immediate needs, I'll take the Volkswagon today, rather than > the Rolls-Royce in (maybe) five years. and in he writes: > In article daniels@NeoSoft.com (Brad Daniels) writes: >> Section 3.3 of the working document makes explicit mention of the fact >> that it is not possible to declare a class name static. What is the >> rationale behind this restriction? > Good question. This is just another C (in-)compatability wart in my > opinion... and an almost totally pointless one. This kind of behavior seems to be almost universal among people interested in the C++ language: one moment they're saying that the language has enough stuff in it already and the next moment they're proposing a new feature. I don't mean to single out Ron here -- he just happened to provide a convenient example. As far as I can tell, almost EVERYONE does this. For example, when Bjarne sent in his paper to the "History of Programming Languages" conference, he told me that essentially every reviewer told him that his paper was too long and then gave him a list of things to add. I don't think this behavior is limited to C++, or even to programming languages. Just look at how much advertising tries to get people to buy products based on how many features they have. -- --Andrew Koenig ark@research.att.com