Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!taumet!mike From: mike@taumet.com (Michael S. Ball) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++ Subject: Re: Borland language extension virtual function = [ ... ]; Message-ID: <793@taumet.com> Date: 1 Jul 91 00:07:12 GMT References: <1991Jun27.130247.5107@mathcs.sjsu.edu> <15072@ulysses.att.com> Reply-To: mike@taumet.UUCP (Michael S. Ball) Organization: Taumetric Corporation, San Diego Lines: 27 In article <15072@ulysses.att.com> mwb@ulysses.att.com (Michael W. Balk) writes: > > >I was thinking of buying Borland C++, but if Borland is really going to install >non-ANSI approved syntax into their product I will probably reconsider the >purchase. Since there is no such thing as ANSI-approved syntax, this is going to cause you no end of difficulties. > Does anyone know of any other C++ vendors who might be doing or >considering doing the same sort of thing with their C++ compilers? All MS-DOS native compilers include extensions to deal with the strange requirements of the environment. Consider, for example "near", "far", "pascal", "cdecl" and a variety of other wierd and wonderful extensions. Vendors include them because their customers feel they need them. One may presume that this is the exact reason that Borland chose to include this syntax. In this case it sounds as though one library vendor had enough clout to get the feature into the product. In other cases, many programmers request features and get them into the product. In no case is anyone required to use them. Since this feature is aimed at MS-Windows programs, which are inherently non-portable, it's hard to care a lot. -- Michael S. Ball mike@taumet.com TauMetric Corporation (619)697-7607