C, and what it is for

[Henry Spencer]

In article <8809092242.AA20696 at BOEING.COM> carroll%seatac at BOEING.COM (Jeff Carroll 544-6349) writes:
>... Until then, though, we all have work to do, and systems programmers
>might be well advised to swallow their pride and give their customers what
>they want.

Systems programmers are, by and large, in the business of giving the
customers what they want.  ANSI standards committees, however, are not.
Sensible standards committees focus on standardizing existing, well-proven
practice, not on redesigning the language to try to make everybody happy.
The two groups are complementary.  If you do not like the way C is now,
ask your systems programmers -- or the ones at your compiler supplier -- to
give you something closer to your needs.  After getting what you think you
need, and using it for a couple of years, you will be in a much better
position to propose it (or, more likely, some debugged variant of it) to
a standards committee.
-- 
NASA is into artificial        |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
stupidity.  - Jerry Pournelle  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry at zoo.toronto.edu