Newsgroups: comp.std.c++
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Packing, Ordering, and Rearranging
Message-ID: <1990Oct5.174210.28737@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1990Oct1.074231.8639@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <57892@microsoft.UUCP> <57898@microsoft.UUCP> <1990Oct3.061708.10391@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>
Date: Fri, 5 Oct 90 17:42:10 GMT

In article <1990Oct3.061708.10391@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes:
>... The convenience of compiler writers should not
>be an issue. Whether something is possible at all, or only
>possible with an NP complete computation, is admissible as an
>argument, but not the compiler writer's mere convenience, where
>that is gained at the expense of the compiler user.

This fine idealistic viewpoint ignores the realities of the standards
world.  A standard is useful only if it is widely accepted.  It cannot
become widely accepted without support from compiler writers.  Trying
to ram things down the compiler writers' throats with standards simply
does not work; all it does is eliminate the usefulness of the standard.

(Actually, it doesn't work for a more fundamental reason:  the compiler
writers tend to be more involved with language standards than the users
are, so standards committees are mostly unlikely to approve ideas that
a majority of compiler writers strongly disapprove of.)

Compiler-writer convenience may be gained at the expense of the user,
but compiler-writer inconvenience is *always* at the expense of the
user, because users are the ones who are using and paying for the
compilers, and they will buy and use cheap, fast, available compilers
rather than expensive, slow, yet-to-be-released ones every time.
-- 
Imagine life with OS/360 the standard  | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
operating system.  Now think about X.  |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry