-=> Quoting Jerry Coffin to Cameron Clark
 JC> There has been a proposal for a standardized format for binary files,
 JC> and I believe it was formally placed before the C9X committee, but I
 JC> believe the proposal was placed before the committee after they'd said
 JC> they weren't going to accept more proposals for extensions, so it died
 JC> a'borning, so to speak.
It likely would have failed the "backward compatability" check.  (Imagine
writing code that was "portable" binary with a new version of your compiler,
and "non-portable" binary with the old version, and trying to get the two to
work together.)  Unless, of course, it didn't use the "b" in fopen/fstream,
but used a new character (i for independant or p for portable?).  This would
have been rather interesting, to say the least.  Especially if it propogated
into the rest of the C++ streams!  (To do, say, RPC, DCE, and other
networking!)
... Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (S)lap nearest innocent bystander.
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