Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hoptoad!gnu
From: gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Any interest in making C++ a real superset of ANSI C?
Message-ID: <7435@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 26 May 89 03:22:52 GMT
Organization: Grasshopper Group in San Francisco
Lines: 23

I think C++ would be a lot better language if it was a superset of ANSI
C.  I can get along with stealing a few identifiers as new keywords,
like "class".  But the gross change that makes "struct foo {...};"
equivalent to "typedef struct foo {...} foo;" is too much to bear.
Surely the burden of incompatability is too high a price to pay, when
the solution is simple:  either writing "struct/union/class/enum foo"
when you declare a "foo", or explicitly coding a typedef yourself in
the header file, if you like typedefs.

Is everyone writing C++ code that depends on this behaviour?
Or are people avoiding it?  Is there any chance that the language
definition will be changed to eliminate it?  Howabout compiler
warnings for depending on it?

If nobody in the C++ world is interested in this, perhaps there
should be a similar "C+" language that is less grossly hacked.

I don't normally read comp.lang.c++, so please send comments to me
by email, and I will summarize back to comp.lang.c++.
-- 
John Gilmore    {sun,pacbell,uunet,pyramid,amdahl}!hoptoad!gnu    gnu@toad.com
  A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,
  the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.