Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Fruits of X3J11
Message-ID: <11020@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 10 Sep 89 10:52:38 GMT
References: <1989Sep10.004441.23090@utzoo.uucp> <14646@bfmny0.UU.NET>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 12

In article <14646@bfmny0.UU.NET> tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes:
>Rather than rely on bureaucratic interpretation of a lengthy spec, why
>not publish a portable Standard C compiler, written in K&R-1 C, which
>exhibits the characteristics of a conforming compiler and is suitably
>commented with references to the spec?

That's not viable -- at best you'd merely have one instance of a
conforming implementation.  There is enough flexibility allowed
in implementing the spec that no single instance could serve as a
yardstick against which others are measured.

Besides, we tried that before (with PCC) and it just didn't work.