Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!philmtl!philabs!phri!marob!cowan
From: cowan@marob.masa.com (John Cowan)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Computer Language July/89 Editorial
Message-ID: <24E884E8.15DF@marob.masa.com>
Date: 15 Aug 89 21:02:30 GMT
References: <19.UUL1.3#5109@pantor.UUCP>
Reply-To: cowan@marob.masa.com (John Cowan)
Organization: ESCC,  New York City
Lines: 30

In article <19.UUL1.3#5109@pantor.UUCP>,
	richard@pantor.UUCP (Richard Sargent) writes:
>J.D. Hildebrand, Editor writes:
>>"The downside of standardization is that it tends to stifle evolution
>>and the adoption of valuable new features. The slowness of C compilers
>>to accomodate C++'s handful of new keywords is a case in point.
>>C implementations cannot simultaneously take advantage of object-oriented
>>programming's benefits and maintain compatibility with the ANSI standard."
>
>Correct me if I am wrong (I am sure you will :-), but I had the impression
>that "accomodating C++'s *handful* of new keywords" is what makes a C++
>compiler rather than a C compiler.

Perhaps the term "accomodate" merely means "recognize as a keyword of C++,
and reject as an identifier", rather than meaning "implement with C++
semantics".  A C compiler could have a (non-ANSI-compliant) mode in which
"virtual", "class", and the like are rejected for use as identifiers,
with a message like
	file "foobar.c", line 32:  'class' is a C++ reserved keyword

In strict-ANSI-compliance mode, this error cannot be given, because "class"
is within the space of user-definable identifiers and the user is free to
use it to name a variable, function, label, or what have you.  Even a strict-
ANSI-compliance compiler can warn about this use, however, since compilers
are free to warn about anything whatever (see comp.lang.c).
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