[comp.std.c] I have seen the ISO C standard, and it is weird.

thorinn@diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen) (02/24/91)

I posted this three days ago in com.std.internat, by mistake, under a
silly title, so here it is again.

domo@tsa.co.uk (Dominic Dunlop) writes:
>the current edition (I'm told it's out) of ISO 9899

It's out; reference number "ISO/IEC 9899 : 1990 (E)", dated 1990-12-15.
Typographically and contents-wise almost identical to the ANSI one ---
but they ADDED 3 TO ALL THE CHAPTER NUMBERS (he screamed). It seems that
ISO/IEC standards needs to have separate ``clauses'' on Scope, Normative
references, Definitions and conventions, and Compliance; so the first
four clause numbers cover four pages between them, and the next three
(Environment, Language, and Library) are 172 pages.

It seems a little silly. But I suppose the ISO/IEC style would rather
have made the next level of the standard into chapters, giving a total
of 28; less incongruous, maybe, but even more confusing when compared to
the ANSI edition.

--
Lars Mathiesen, DIKU, U of Copenhagen, Denmark      [uunet!]mcsun!diku!thorinn
Institute of Datalogy -- we're scientists, not engineers.      thorinn@diku.dk