Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!lll-winken!uunet!microsoft!jimad
From: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Array of class objects
Keywords: array, initialization, class objects
Message-ID: <59770@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 12 Dec 90 21:06:44 GMT
References: <1756@enuxha.eas.asu.edu> <1990Nov15.050358.16043@clear.com> <59511@microsoft.UUCP> <536@taumet.com>
Reply-To: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 26

In article <536@taumet.com> steve@taumet.com (Stephen Clamage) writes:
|jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK) writes:
|
|>Please quote either directly from Ellis & Stroustrup's ARM [the reddish-brown
|>book from Addison-Wesley ISBN 0-201-51459-1] or from the ANSI-C++ committee's
|>working papers.
|
|Please do not quote from the X3J16 C++ committee working papers, either.
|They carry no official weight, and are subject to change without notice.
|They reflect items under discussion by the committee, not a language
|standard.  (A working paper might be just the opinions of a single person.)

Well, nothing has "official" weight right now.  The ARM seems to be
holding up pretty well, but for example, I'd hate for people to say 
that template and exceptions *aren't* in the language, because the
ARM calls them experimental.  I'd much rather people try to track the
developments of the ANSI-C++ committee.  For now, I think that either 
the ARM or the ANSI-C++ pronouncements [the working papers, for lack
of anything better] are pretty darned good discriptions of what the
language "is."  And I'd hate to C++ to degenerate into multiple 
dialects, either because people feel there is no "official" description
of the language, or because they're working from old references.
The ANSI-C effort showed that nothing "is" until its over, but good efforts
towards standardization were made before the standard became "official."
I claim most of the benefits of standardization come from trying to 
reach a consensus, not from having made that consensus.