hagerman@ece.cmu.edu (John Hagerman) (04/17/91)
How does ANSI work? Can/will ANSI C continue to evolve? Is there any point in my thinking about what I'd change in the language, or in posting such thoughts here for comment? Is it possible for me to get my thoughts into serious consideration with little pain? Thanks - John -- hagerman@ece.cmu.edu
diamond@jit345.swstokyo.dec.com (Norman Diamond) (04/17/91)
In article <HAGERMAN.91Apr16221024@rx7.ece.cmu.edu> hagerman@ece.cmu.edu (John Hagerman) writes: >How does ANSI work? Can/will ANSI C continue to evolve? It will, exactly as ANSI Fortran, ANSI Cobol, and others have evolved. It might be the way ANSI/ISO Pascal evolved (by giving the new language a modified name instead of supplanting the old one), but this was unusual. >Is there any point in my thinking about what I'd change in the language, That's a matter of personal opinion. >or in posting such thoughts here for comment? Such posts will likely draw flames until the committee begins work on a new standard, maybe in about 4 years or so. I believe there's another newsgroup now for C futures. >Is it possible for me to get my thoughts into serious consideration Yes, but you'll have to wait for the call for public comments on the new standard. >with little pain? No. (Some people would put a smiley on this, but it's really pretty accurate.) -- Norman Diamond diamond@tkov50.enet.dec.com If this were the company's opinion, I wouldn't be allowed to post it.
gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) (04/18/91)
In article <HAGERMAN.91Apr16221024@rx7.ece.cmu.edu> hagerman@ece.cmu.edu (John Hagerman) writes: >How does ANSI work? Can/will ANSI C continue to evolve? Is there any >point in my thinking about what I'd change in the language, or in >posting such thoughts here for comment? Is it possible for me to get >my thoughts into serious consideration with little pain? ANSI X3J11 is currently only in the business of interpreting the existing C standard, not drafting a new one. A revised C standard from ANSI is unlikely for the next several years. ISO SC22/WG14 is currently working on proposed "normative addenda" that would in effect modify the international C standard, which at the moment is technically identical to the ANSI C standard. It is highly desirable for such addenda to remain entirely compatible with the current standard, but anything could happen, given the politics involved and the fact that it's mostly a different set of people than the ones who prepared the original technical content (so some of the principles and reasoning that went into the current standard may not be known to the addendum workers; not all of that was captured in the Rationale document). However, the normative addenda are addressing specific technical areas and are not meant as a way to solicit random suggestions for changes to C. If you have some good ideas for improvements (hopefully not incompatible changes) to the language, try implementing them or suggesting them to implementors. For example, the Gnu C compiler supports numerous extensions beyond the standard. If there is enough favorable experience with the extensions when work begins toward a revised standard at some future date, then they might be adopted for the future standard. "But don't bother us now."