Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Standards For C++
Message-ID: <1988Sep29.164824.25390@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <255@itivax.UUCP> <6590067@hplsla.HP.COM>
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 88 16:48:24 GMT

In practice, in the absence of formal standards processes (e.g. ANSI),
de-facto standards tend to be set by whatever documents are available.
At present, we essentially have two levels of standard for the language
itself:  Bjarne's book, and his paper in the C++ Workshop proceedings
(which includes multiple inheritance and a number of other things).  The
formal reference manual he now has in the works will probably supersede
the latter in the public eye.

Most every supplier will be trying to bring his product up from book level
to paper level, but they've had less than a year to do that so far.

I really don't see any grievous need for multiple levels of standard,
certainly nothing sufficient to justify the grievous hassles that would
result.  There will *always* be inadequate implementations, but I do not
see that we have any reason to legitimize them.  The *lowest* level of
quasi-official standard is, in fact, the real standard; let's set that
at the level we really want, not at the lowest level we think we could
put up with.

Actually, our big problem at the moment is libraries, not the language
proper.  It's hardly surprising that libraries vary widely, when figuring
out what to put in them requires gathering a diverse set of papers, Bell
Labs tech reports, Usenet postings, etc., and trying to make sense of it
all.  We badly need a *single* readily-available document that describes
a basic set of libraries in considerable detail.
-- 
The meek can have the Earth;    |    Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
the rest of us have other plans.|uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu