summary of C-standards workshop at Usenix

[Laura Creighton]

I have a real problem with this statement by Geoff Kuenning:

	As to its being THEIR language:  sorry, I don't agree.  THEIR language
	is the C compiler from version 6 or before;  the current C language
	belongs to the 	user community that needs it.  Would you want
	Grace Hopper to be the only person allowed to propose changes in
	COBOL?  I don't think she even uses the language
	any more, yet it is a living and breathing entity (okay, gasping).

First of all, C is not a public domain product. If you have a C compiler
you either have written your own (in which case it is yours) or you have
bought it from somebody (in which case it is theirs). All the need in the
world doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

We can come to the conclusion that the C standards committee is doing a
good thing, and we can all adopt it, making it a bad business practice
to not adopt it, but AT&T and anybody else producing C compilers can be
stupid and ignore the standard, *because THEY and not the community OWN
the language*.

If the C standards committee was doing a really lousy job, I would be
really pleased if Dennis Ritchie was the only person who could make
changes to the official language. (Propose changes, no. Make them
official -- yes). Of course, Dennis Ritchie might have better things to
do with his time. 

If you ever invent a good thing which is good for reasons beyond 
``well, it compiles and does the job'' -- for instance if it is elegant,
you run a terrible risk whenever you release it to the world at large.
A lot of people don't know what ``elegant'' means. About 2 months ago
I got a piece of code mailed back to me. Somebody claimed that it
was a crock and asked me to fix my trash.

Well, I looked at it. It took me a while to recognise it. Four years ago
it had been a page and a half of assembler which did one thing well.
Today it is >14 pages of assembler which does 5 new things badly and
no longer does what I wrote it to do at all.

Yet my name is still on the top.

I suppose I could go the Peter Langston route (when is there going
to be Empire for the 68000, Peter?) and not release source. Maybe
I should put a disclaimer in:

	``anybody caught brutally hacking this code will have the
	dubious pleasure of being visited by the source code Mafia
	and have every finger broken before being beaten up with
	the clubs with the sharp spikes!''

I know people who put in a notice saying that you must document every
change that you make to any code or that you must delete the author's
name after making any changes. The second approach seems like giving
your effort away to the barbarians. All of this becomes more difficult
when you are trying to *sell* your software, as opposed to give it
away as public domain stuff. There are some horrible things out there
which are called ``unix'' and ``unix-like''. I suspect that if anything
that called itself ``unix'' had to have the Ken Thompson seal of approval
there would be fewer of these. Of course, Ken Thompson has probably got
better things to do with his time as well.

Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura