🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <DIuD69.853@actrix.gen.nz>,
markj@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz (Mark Jordan) wrote:

|> That's precisely what the C++ standard is becoming. Is it too much to
|> ask for a standard that stays still!

I think that's an unfair characterisation. Very few new features have been
added in the last few meetings -- we have been clarifying the semantics and
descriptions.

|> > compilers. So, NOW you can't write portable code anyway. 
|> 
|> Precisely!  Some of us would like to use the same code on embedded
platforms
|> as we do on a PC or mainframe. It's now next to impossible - even
|> if you do have unlimited amounts of money to spend on C++ compilers.

With respect, "rubbish". Writing portable code is certainly possible. I
worked for a company that had a quarter of a million line C/C++ app and
could port it to new platforms in one or two days max, usually half a day.
They did it by having very tight coding standards which were automatically
enforced by the source library system. [mail me offline anyone who's
interested in hearing more about this]

|> Could somebody tell me please when all these changes are going to end.
|> I would like to see at least a glimmer of light on the horizon.

The changes have almost completely stopped. Why don't you get more involved
in the standards process if you are so concerned? That's why I got my
previous company involved and it's why I, as an individual, am a paid up,
voting member of X3J16 who attends all the meetings!

|> Am I the only software engineer out here that feels this way? I bet the
|> guys/gals who implement the compilers are dreading each change as it is
made.

Since the majority of compiler vendors are represented on the committee and
are actively voting on these changes, I think you are off the mark.

|> I think it's about time people started discussing these issues in this
|> news group, instead of dreaming up some new obscure feature which could
|> be added to an already over-bloated language.

The Extensions WG was disbanded a couple of meetings ago so that we can
focus on clarifications. This was done partly as an externally visible
confirmation that the process is indeed stabilising. We are in the 'home
run' of the ballot process, concerned with satisfying national bodies'
objections _only_ and we are not adding any more extensions.

Critical posts like yours do not make the committee's job any easier.

Sean A. Corfield
Object Consultancy Services
C++ - Beyond the ARM - http://uptown.turnpike.net/~scorf/cplusext.html




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