Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!snorkelwacker!paperboy!meissner From: meissner@osf.org (Michael Meissner) Newsgroups: comp.std.c Subject: Re: Proposed Enhancement to select/case (yes, I know...) Message-ID: Date: 31 Aug 90 14:24:41 GMT References: <1990Aug30.164610.3519@zoo.toronto.edu> <13714@smoke.BRL.MIL> Sender: news@OSF.ORG Organization: Open Software Foundation Lines: 35 In-reply-to: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL's message of 30 Aug 90 21:43:36 GMT In article <13714@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) writes: | In article <1990Aug30.164610.3519@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: | >In article burley@world.std.com (James C Burley) writes: | >>... how about this: allow ranges (and, perhaps, lists) on case statements. | >Such a feature appeared in one draft of ANSI C, and disappeared in the | >next. I believe the reason was the usual: there was no implementation | >experience with it, and it was a minor convenience rather than a solution | >to a serious problem. | | That's why it vanished. Although it was before my time, I heard that | the reason it appeared was that the preceding X3J11 meeting was held in | Europe and was overrun with Pascal freaks. The Pascalisms were removed | at the next meeting, where C freaks dominated. Doug, you heard wrong. It was one of the Boston based meetings that it got added in. I seem to remember that it was Joe Mueller then of Tektronix who lead the fight to put it in. Larry Roseler (original redactor of the document) then of AT&T lead the fight to remove it in the next meeting, because it was syntactic sugar that was needed. In particular, one of the problems that kept being mentioned was 'a'..'z', since on EBCDIC there are 10 or so characters between 'i' and 'j' (and likewise between 'I' and 'J'). I think the year was 1985, but it could have been earlier or later -- definately before 1987 when I was transfered to North Carolina. The vote both times were fairly close (this was when a 50% + 1 person majority was needed to change the base document), so it wasn't a case of being overrun with Pascal freaks. -- Michael Meissner email: meissner@osf.org phone: 617-621-8861 Open Software Foundation, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA, 02142 Do apple growers tell their kids money doesn't grow on bushes?