X3J11 thoughts (standardization)

[Bill Findlay]

As a member of the British Standards Institute committee
that drafted the BSI/ISO Pascal standard  (the ANSI standard
being essentially identical to the ISO level 0 subset), I can
assure him that the restriction of control variables to be local
variables is due neither to malice, nor to stupidity.
Consider the analysis that a compiler would have to perform
to deduce that subprograms called within a for loop did not
change a non-locally declared control variable (by "side effect").
Speaking as a user, I would rather have a restriction that has a
chance of being implemeted according to the standard than make
a requirement that few compilers are ever likely to comply with.