Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!sco!seanf
From: seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: quotes inside #if 0
Message-ID: <3290@scolex.sco.COM>
Date: 10 Sep 89 09:06:40 GMT
References: <2014@munnari.oz.au> <14512@haddock.ima.isc.com> <2023@munnari.oz.au> <1989Sep6.163608.20143@utzoo.uucp> <32896@ism780c.isc.com> <1989Sep8.154522.17068@utzoo.uucp> <14640@bfmny0.UU.NET>
Reply-To: seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan)
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Lines: 28

In article <14640@bfmny0.UU.NET> tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (0000-Admin(0000)) writes:
>So X3J11 spent all those years to be able to answer *most* questions
>about C.
>I thought we could already do that when they started.

X3J11 *created* a standard; they did not recognize one.  In order to
increase acceptance, they tried to make their standard as "standard" as
possible.  However, since C has been implemented on many different machines
and operating systems, of various architectures (from the sane CDC Cyber
170-state machines to the insane nameless ones 8-)), and has features that
few other languages offer (other than assembly), making an instantly
portable standard is (and was) quite impossible.  For the *most* part, the
language which X3J11 created is upwardly compatable with a sort of merging
of most of the then-currently existing C compilers.  It is not downward
compatable.  Do not expect non-conforming compilers to behave as the
dpANS dictates, although, in most cases, it will be close enough that the
only C reference I use is the draft (and the sources, of course 8-)).

X3J11 spent all of those years trying to come up with something that could
(and, hopefully, would) be implemented by people who had already written
compilers, so that it could be in use soon enough.  Changing the language is
Bad:  consider FORTRAN 8x.

There.  Now I feel better 8-).
-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "Time has little to do with infinity and jelly donuts."
seanf@sco.COM    |    -- Thomas Magnum (Tom Selleck), _Magnum, P.I._
(408) 458-1422   | Any opinions expressed are my own, not my employers'.