Fruits of X3J11

[Doug Gwyn]

In article <1989Sep10.075346.1685 at utzoo.uucp> henry at utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>And any formal notation has readability problems for anyone but
>the High Priests.

It was proposed that the C language standard be expressed using
a formal semantic specification language.  The majority of the
committee didn't wish to do that.  Although it was before my time,
I suspect that a major reason was the large amount of extra effort
it would take for many members to come up to speed on the technique.
However, by the end of the public review process, I'd become
convinced that we probably would have been better off using a
formal specification language.  On the other hand, that in itself
wouldn't have guaranteed a desirable C specification.  C has too
many "warts" to lend itself to a simple formal specification.  It
should be kept in mind when designing a brand-new programming
language, though.