On 6/16/07, Ross Ridge <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Robert Dewar writes:
>The only time that it is reasonable to extend is when there are clear
>signals from the standards committee that it is likely that a feature
>will be added, in which case there may be an argument for adding the
>feature "prematurely".
I completely disagree. Standards should primarily standardize existing
practice, not inventing new features.
That is one view. The other view is that standards can push the state
of the art in programming. The Ada standard is a pure example of
the latter approach. In practice, both C and C++ have been a mix of
existing practice and invention. I think purity in approach is actually
suboptimal.
New features should be created by people who actually want and
will use the features, not by some disinterested committee.
The C++ standards committee consists of volunteers that actually
want and will use the features. There is too much sheer work and
negotiation involved in the standards process to not be interested.
GCC has always been a place for experimenting with new features.
Many of the new features in C99 had already been implemented in
GCC. Even in the cases where C99 standardized features differently,
I think both GCC and Standard C benefited from the work done in
GCC.
All true. What the standards process buys you is more review by a
wider variety of stakeholders. The result is generally something that
more folks can use.
On the specific topic of unions, there is a proposal before the
committee to extend unions in this direction. Let me caution you
that this proposal has not been reviewed by a significant fraction
of the committee, and hence has a small chance of being accepted
and an even smaller chance of surviving unchanged. See
http://www.open-std.org/JTC1/SC22/WG21/docs/papers/2007/n2248.html
--
Lawrence Crowl
