Xref: utzoo comp.std.c:312 comp.lang.c:12136
Newsgroups: comp.std.c,comp.lang.c
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Commentary for third public review of X3J11 C
Message-ID: <1988Aug27.230224.15340@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <64919@sun.uucp> <8358@smoke.ARPA> <59@radix> <8372@smoke.ARPA> <197@itivax.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 88 23:02:24 GMT

In article <197@itivax.UUCP> scs@itivax.UUCP (Steve C. Simmons) writes:
>... Clearly the folks who need the numeric changes should
>get together, formalize their needs, educate the rest of us on their
>necessity, and propose it for the revision.

You forgot a couple of major intermediate steps:  convince some compiler
suppliers to implement the changes, and use them for a while to find out
whether they really do the job.  Many people, including me, will remain
unconvinced that your proposals are reasonable unless you've actually tried
them.  Anyone who's actually tried language design (or library-function
design, which is a specialized subcase of language design) can tell you
that intuition is no substitute for experience.

Yes, this is more work.  There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
-- 
Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu