Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) Newsgroups: net.lang.c Subject: Re: Re: ANSI C and the C Pre-Processor Message-ID: <4429@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Sat, 6-Oct-84 19:05:11 EDT Article-I.D.: utzoo.4429 Posted: Sat Oct 6 19:05:11 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 6-Oct-84 19:05:11 EDT References: <9110@watmath.UUCP> <>, <387@ncoast.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 38 >> Great. Another tool that's nearly vital for writing C, but not available >> on most (all) non-Unix systems. Anybody got pointers to a public domain >> m4? >> >>>Anybody got pointers to a sane ANSI committee? We just got a C compiler >on CSUOHIO.BITNET (VM/370) and I intend to port quite a few of my compatible >(i.e. not based on Unix peculiarities) programs. If the ANSI committee >thinks I'm going to use m4 on Unix and lose ALL portability, they've another >think coming. My personal impression is that the committee is saner than most of the people flaming on this issue. If they say "if you want a general-purpose macro processor, use m4", all this means is that they are not able to solve all the world's problems. At some point, it is necessary to give up and say "the tool we are trying to settle on is not powerful enough to solve your problem". Otherwise they never produce a standard, since the number and complexity of problems that people would *like* their tool to solve tends to grow without bound. The committee, as nearly as I can see, is *not* crazy and is quite concerned about portability. They have simply judged that the problems that are under discussion are (a) sufficiently uncommon, (b) sufficiently ill-understood, and (c) sufficiently difficult, that attempting to solve them in the C standard is inappropriate. I agree. Bear in mind that we do not **WANT** a C standard committee that is bent on solving every possible problem. The result would look nothing like C. This has happened to other languages; ever looked at some of the recent output from the ANSI BASIC effort? If you are a serious C user, it is appropriate for you to thank whatever gods you believe in that the ANSI C committee hasn't gone that way. -- "If you ask for the moon, you may get the shaft instead." Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry