🚀 go-pugleaf

> > > Just to put my cards on the table.  X3J16/SC22 (C++ standards
> > > committee) is sharply divided on whether to have a section on
> > > limits.  Some of us, including myself, argue that without such a
> > > a section any limit is a bug....  we don't want to condone any limits.
> > How can you possibly avoid some kind of limit?
> Of course I'll run out of some resource eventually, but chances
> are it will not translate directly into any of the numbers in
> the standard, and it may vary from run to run. ... My contention
> is that these limits are a quality of implementation issue rather
> than a conformance issue.

The C standard does condone limits, but the actual wording is:

#  The implementation shall be able to translate and execute at least
#  one program that contains at least one instance of every one of the
#  following limits.  [Footnote: Implementations should avoid imposing
#  fixed translation limits wherever possible.]

I believe that the intended thrust of these words in 2.2.4.1/5.2.4.1 is:
"We would really rather that you don't fix limits at all, but IF YOU MUST,
then those limits should be at least as large as the following."

Whether fixed limits are an insupportable evil or not is a religious issue,
on which there seem to be three points of view:

1. Fixed limits are so evil that an implementation should be forbidden
   from having them.

2. Fixed limits are so much a quality-of-implementation issue that a
   standard should not be allowed to mention them.

(This is the point of view quoted above.)

3. Fixed limits are a quality-of-implementation issue, but ridiculously
   small fixed limits could constrain the programmer so much that the
   standard should prohibit them.

(This is the point of view of the C standard, and mine.)

Discussion of what the C++ standard should do, of course, belongs in
comp.std.c++ and not here.
-- 
Mark Brader		    At any rate, C++ != C.  Actually, the value of the
SoftQuad Inc., Toronto	    expression "C++ != C" is implementation-defined.
utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com				-- Peter da Silva
				[Actually, it's undefined.]
This article is in the public domain.