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From: anw@nott-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: Expression sequencing/\"standards\"
Message-ID: <281@tuck.nott-cs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 31-Oct-86 12:13:27 EST
Article-I.D.: tuck.281
Posted: Fri Oct 31 12:13:27 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 5-Nov-86 06:15:49 EST
References: <4527@brl-smoke.ARPA> <286@ndmce.uucp>
Reply-To: anw@nott-cs.UUCP (Dr A. N. Walker)
Organization: Maths Department, University of Nottingham, ENGLAND.
Lines: 16
Summary: Yes, there is one!

In article <286@ndmce.uucp> in@pollux.UUCP writes:
>If you can find me a definition of *anything* (in English, of comparable
>complexity to a general purpose computer programming language) which is
>unambiguous, then I'll eat the manual this description printed in.

	The Algol 68 definition is known to be unambiguous.  Sadly, it is also
known that all the printed versions contain bugs, some doubtless not yet
discovered.  Oh yes, :-).

	Seriously, W-grammars are *very good* for providing careful definitions
of languages, and it is a shame that they are not more widely used -- many of
the silly arguments one gets into over C and Pascal could easily be resolved
by reference to the standard grammar, if one existed.

						-- Andy Walker
							Maths Dept, Nottm Univ.