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From: wf@glasgow.UUCP (Bill Findlay)
Newsgroups: net.lang.pascal,net.lang.c,net.lang
Subject: Re: X3J11 thoughts (standardization)
Message-ID: <893@glasgow.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Sep-84 15:02:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: glasgow.893
Posted: Mon Sep  3 15:02:47 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 26-Aug-84 01:38:32 EDT
Organization: Comp. Sci., Univ. of Glasgow, Scotland
Lines: 12

As a member of the British Standards Institute committee
that drafted the BSI/ISO Pascal standard  (the ANSI standard
being essentially identical to the ISO level 0 subset), I can
assure him that the restriction of control variables to be local
variables is due neither to malice, nor to stupidity.
Consider the analysis that a compiler would have to perform
to deduce that subprograms called within a for loop did not
change a non-locally declared control variable (by "side effect").
Speaking as a user, I would rather have a restriction that has a
chance of being implemeted according to the standard than make
a requirement that few compilers are ever likely to comply with.