Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: quotes inside #if 0
Message-ID: <1989Sep8.154522.17068@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <2014@munnari.oz.au> <14512@haddock.ima.isc.com> <2023@munnari.oz.au> <1989Sep6.163608.20143@utzoo.uucp> <32896@ism780c.isc.com>
Date: Fri, 8 Sep 89 15:45:22 GMT

In article <32896@ism780c.isc.com> marv@ism780.UUCP (Marvin Rubenstein) writes:
>>There was never any suggestion that it didn't, either.  One should avoid
>>the mistake of assuming that books contain all the answers, ...
>
>This assertion puzzles me.  Are you saying I won't be able to rely on the
>ANSI standard to answer questions about the language?  I assume it will be in
>book form if and when it is published.

You will be able to rely on the ANSI standard to answer *most* questions
about the language, since it has been prepared with far greater care than
most books about C.  However, there will undoubtedly still be questions
that it won't answer, given that it was prepared by human beings and not
by gods.  (There's only one C god around -- DMR -- and he wasn't deeply
involved. :-))  When you encounter such a question, you should not say
"well, the standard doesn't answer this directly, but if I twist the
wording and put strange interpretations on a few of the terms, I can
construe the footnote on page 357 to be a partial answer".  You should
say "the standard does not answer this question".  Period.  At which
point either you put a formal query into the ANSI "interpretation of
standards" queue, or you conclude that your code should not rely on
any specific answer to that question.
-- 
V7 /bin/mail source: 554 lines.|     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1989 X.400 specs: 2200+ pages. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu