-=> On 06 Sep 96  09:41:00 <=-
-=> Paul Edwards was heard to tell John Gardeniers <=-

    Hi Paul,

 JG> I can't say for sure if it was in the *final* draft of the C
 JG> specs.  but according to Kerrnigan (or was it Ritchie?) it most
 JG> certainly was in the *original* draft.

 PE> Please quote that.  I have K&R 2, and have access to K&R 1, so can
 PE> verify any quote.

    The information I received was in a book, in which either K or R
was being interviewed about what was then a new programming
language.  At the time of the interview they were apparently
preparing the original draft.  The book was borrowed from the local
(Croydon, Vic.) library, although I couldn't even begin to guess
what either the title or author are.  While I realise that's not
what would generally be though of as a convincing argument it's the
only one I have.  (Standards aside, *I* think all compilers,
regardless of language, *should* allow inline assembly anyway.)

 JG> The way I view these things is quite simple: Later standards, in
 JG> this case ANSI and ISO, should only refine and add to the original
 JG> specs, NOT alter them beyond recognition.

 PE> With a statement like that, "beyond recognition" and

 PE> "barstardized" I presume you are able to quote 5-10 instances where
 PE> the ISO C standard has completely broken K&R C code.  Could you

    I can do very much better than that.  Take a peice of source
written in K&R C. Now see what happens if you try to compile it
(unaltered) with an ANSI or ISO compiler.  If the language is the
same the compiler should not issue any errors or warnings.  Now
take a peice of recent code and try to compile it with a K&R
compiler.  Quite simply, it takes a lot of work to adapt most recent
source code so that it will compile with a K&R compiler.  I think
that well justifies my description.

    I must say that I came on a bit stronger in the original message
than I normally do.  I must admit that "beyond recognition" may have
been stretching it a *bit* far.  I'll bet I wrote it just after
trying to compile some ANSI or ISO code.

 JG> I further believe that ISO should stick to
 JG> checking the calibration of kitchen scales.  They have no business
 JG> sticking their weights and measures noses into programming language
 JG> specifications.  (There!  I said it!)

 PE> Which bit of the ISO C standard don't you like.  I reckon they've done
 PE> an absolutely brilliant job.  Actually, I think ANSI did most of the
 PE> work, ISO is basically a copy of the ANSI one.

    It isn't so much that I have a dislike for anything specific
that ISO has done.  I simply feel that a weights and measures
organisation has no place interfering with the finer arts, such as
programming languages.  ANSI, on the other hand, have had an
extremely close relationship with computers as far back as I can
remember.  For what it's worth, I'm now looking for an ANSI
compliant compiler to replace PCC (K&R), partly because I've
surrendered to the inevitable.

 PE> FREQ RZSZPE.ZIP, PDPZM*.* and there's a couple more that may be of
 PE> interest, FREQ FILES to find them for yourself, all from 3:711/934.

 JG> Thanks, as it happens I aquired RZSZ recently.

 PE> That won't compile on MSDOS or OS/2 as-is, you need RZSZPE.ZIP for
 PE> that.

    For me that isn't much of a problem, I just want to write a
Zmodem routine for Commodore 8 bit machines (C64, Plus/4 and C16).
It will be rewritten in assembler anyway so I really just need the
algorithms.  I wouldn't even consider trying to match routines with
what's already available for the PC.

 JG> If only FREQing
 JG> was available to most of us. Unfortunately it's not. :(

 PE> It is.  Dial 02-9436-1785 and download DEVIL*.* from file area 1.

    I have (did have?) the Devil program but the few attempts I've
made to FREQ have been prevented because the systems would only
allow it from node listed addresses.  Perhaps I just got unlucky
with the systems I chose to call but there's no way I'm going to
make more long distance calls only to find I won't get access to the
files I'm after.  Obviously this wouldn't be a problem if I was a
sysop.

        John

... You have to be in the dark to see the Universe.
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