Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!oddjob!ncar!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!ulysses!hector!jss
From: jss@hector.UUCP (Jerry Schwarz)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: trigraphs in X3J11
Message-ID: <10326@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com>
Date: 24 May 88 14:01:09 GMT
References: <5215@ico.ISC.COM> <7937@brl-smoke.ARPA> <10941@steinmetz.ge.com>
Sender: netnews@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com
Reply-To: jss@hector (Jerry Schwarz)
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill
Lines: 46

In article <10941@steinmetz.ge.com> davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes:
>
>  PLEASE X3J11, fix this sucker! It CAN be done without breaking
>existing programs.  It makes more sense in the preprocessor.  Best
>reason is that as specified it will lead to compilers which don't do
>full ANSI by default, or even subset compilers. 
>

Attached below is the text of the official committee response  to
Letter P02 (during the first public review period around a year ago).

The standard is now in the third public review period and the
committee is only accepting comments on changes made between the
second and third drafts.  Thus Trigraphs (which were accepted very
early in by the committee and were discussed extensively in this
group several times since) are almost certainly going to be in the
final version.

I can understand that it may be frustrating for someone to come upon
the proposed standard today, see something they don't like, and feel
it is being rammed down their throats without due consideration.
Especially if they think they have a better way to solve the problem.
However, I hope such people will try to understand that the process
of creating a standard goes on for a long time and that suggestions
made toward the end of the process may not receive the same
consideration as suggestions made earlier.

For the record: I think trigraphs are a bad idea.

Jerry Schwarz

-----------------------------


X3J11 Response to Letter P02

Summary of Issue: Eliminate trigraphs.

Committee Response:

The Committee has reaffirmed this decision on more than one occasion.

The Committeee discussed alternatives to trigraphs on a number of
occassions, but always decided that they fill a need.  C must support
a wide variety of terminals and keyboards many of which lack the full
C character set.