Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!rutgers!cbmvax!snark!eric
From: eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: what C needs
Message-ID: <143@snark.UUCP>
Date: 2 Jan 88 18:53:26 GMT
References: <8712241909.AA03710@decwrl.dec.com>
Organization: Thyrsus Enterprises, Malvern PA 19355
Lines: 24
Summary: Yeah, but look what happened to Pascal

In article <1759@bsu-cs.UUCP>, dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
>Another interesting thing about Pascal, that ANSI might want to
>consider, is the idea of a level 0 (the basic language) and a level 1
>(the fancy stuff).

Sorry, Rahul, because I like your political postings, but I have to give this
idea the big "Woof! Woof!".  Look what happened to ISO Pascal as a result --
half the compiler vendors supported only the crippled level 0 and got to make
a virtue of their laziness, and the other half mixed (usually botched) level
1 support with their own (incompatible, naturally) extensions.

Net result: level 1 became effectively verboten for portable code *and stayed
that way*, and Pascal is moribund. Granted, there have been other reasons for
its decline, but it is all too easy to imagine a C standard with 'levels'
falling victim to the same debilitating disease.

Let's please allow this idea to die a quick and quiet death.

[still bearing scars from my years as a Pascal hacker]


-- 
      Eric S. Raymond
      UUCP:  {{seismo,ihnp4,rutgers}!cbmvax,sdcrdcf!burdvax,vu-vlsi}!snark!eric
      Post:  22 South Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355    Phone: (215)-296-5718