Xref: utzoo gnu.g++.help:198 comp.lang.c++:10577
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!uunet!microsoft!jimad
From: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK)
Newsgroups: gnu.g++.help,comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Incompatible changes in C++
Message-ID: <59305@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 26 Nov 90 19:15:27 GMT
References: <9011190326.AA13113@mole.ai.mit.edu> <11642@alice.att.com>
Reply-To: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 21

Well, just to represent the other end of the spectrum, *my* concerns are
that C++ is being sacrificed too much on an alter of ANSI-C compatibility.
I believe a couple of years from now no one is going to give a fig about X3J11,
but rather are going to be cursing all these wierd little "features"
of X3J16 asking: "where the hell did *that* come from."  -- The answer
being that "that" came from striving for the last iota of backwards
compatibility.

*I'd* rather see C++ cleaned up a little bit, make some of the rules a
little simpler rather stretching the rules are far as possible in order
to encompass as many old C and C++ programs as possible.  Old programs
can be handled via a compiler switch -- even if it does make the compiler
writers job a little harder.

I think we should be looking less towards the past, and more towards the
future.  If one is not willing to give up on some backwards compatibility,
the language can only become messier and messier as new features are added.
Let's make C++ a good language in its own right, not the poor step-child of
ANSI-C.

[the opinions of a C++ user, not a compiler writer :-]