Why he won't use ANSI C

[Chris Torek]

In article <7290 at brl-smoke.ARPA> gwyn at brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>My views normally agree with Guy Harris, Chris Torek, Henry Spencer, and
>other established C/UNIX "gurus".  The main "controversy" is that Chris
>and Donn Seeley seem fundamentally opposed to the idea of C standardization
>by committee whereas I support what X3J11 is doing for the most part.

I was all set to hotly deny this (to boldly split the infinitive),
and jump up and down shouting `I AM NOT SHOUTING'; but it is true,
quite so; and it stems from my personal definition of a committee:
A committee is a group of people charged with the task of reaching
a compromise, and a compromise is a solution to a problem that is
equally distasteful to all.  I do not want language changes that
are equally distasteful to everyone; I want those which result in
a complete, coherent whole that is nonetheless compatible with what
I run now (so I need not do any work :-) ).

X3J11 has actually done quite well, given the differences between
existing implementations.  There are a few botches, notably the
unsigned `value preserving' rules, `noalias', and some of the
preprocessor rules.  The coexistence of old and new style declarations
necessitates the format for the prototype declaration of a function
with no arguments, which is an eyesore.  There are a few other
kludges, but an ANSI Standard is of necessity a compromise.  I
might wish for a standard from research!dmr, but he has the wrong
initials.  If only he had been named Isaac Stanley Oliver....
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Computer Science, +1 301 454 7163
(hiding out on trantor.umd.edu until mimsy is reassembled in its new home)
Domain: chris at mimsy.umd.edu		Path: not easily reachable