Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!pilchuck!dataio!fnx!nazgul!bright
From: bright@nazgul.UUCP (Walter Bright)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Incompatible changes in C++
Message-ID: <192@nazgul.UUCP>
Date: 4 Dec 90 00:27:35 GMT
References: <9011190326.AA13113@mole.ai.mit.edu> <11642@alice.att.com> <59305@microsoft.UUCP>
Reply-To: bright@nazgul.UUCP (Walter Bright)
Organization: Zortech, Seattle
Lines: 21

In article <59305@microsoft.UUCP> jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK) writes:
/*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.

Could you please post some rules that you feel should be simplified? I'm
interested as I have my own agenda :-)

OK, I'll go first. I'd like to see the rules simplified so that 2 token
lookahead is sufficient for parsing C++. The prices paid for arbitrary
lookahead are:
1. Compilers are slower.
2. Compilers are more complex (meaning buggier and fewer vendors).
3. Much more difficult to write parsers that do such things as source code
   formatting, tags file generation, cross reference generators, syntax
   directed editors, complexity analyzers, etc. I think the lack of these
   tools for C++ is a symptom of C++ not being a context free grammar,
   and requiring arbitrary lookahead.

P.S. Zortech still fully supports ANSI C++ and will go along with and implement
the final standard, whatever that turns out to be.


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