-=> Adam Fitzpatrick wrote to John Gardeniers about ISO vs K&R <=-

    Hi Adam,
    
 JG>One thing I've noticed in the C echos, which I've never come
 JG>across elsewhere, is the way the standards are virtually a religion
 JG>for some (a few) of you.  I'm sure glad nothing like that has ever
 JG>happened in assembly language programming.  I think it must be born
 JG>in mind that the object of writing a program is to acheive a given
 JG>result, NOT to stick to any arbitrary standard.

 AF> Perhaps it's because C is meant to be portable, and to be portable it
 AF> needs quite a degree of compatibility (ie a standard to be
 AF> maintained). Assembly stuff is generally machine-specific. The odd
 AF> piece of 6502 stuff I've written for the BBC would never work on a C64.
 AF> Therefore it's not an issue.

    I think the devotion to an arbitrary standard, which is currently under
review anyway, is taken much too far by some programmers. The end result is
invariably fatware, which runs very slowly. Windows is a very good example.

    Another thing I find somewhat interesting is the way some programmers
will argue in favour of standards (whatever they may currently be) and then
go ahead and write programs which can only be compiled by a specific make
and model of compiler. 

 JG>A closing comment: ISO would have me re-calibrate the tacho on
 JG>my bike so that it reads in radians per second, going by the last
 JG>time I had a look at the standards.  I can only assume that my RPM
 JG>tacho is an old leftover "K&R" unit :)

 AF> Did you have a painful incident involving a standards committee when
 AF> you were a child? :) Seriously though, C being standard is a good
 AF> thing. Imagine if Basic was _the_ programming language. It's fine if
 AF> you only need to use one set of tools on one platform, but otherwise
 AF> you're left with quite a bit of work if you need to move from one
 AF> environment to another, and even more if you need to use two different
 AF> platforms concurrently. C doesn't really have that problem.

    My painful incident wasn't at childhood, it's daily. To me two inches
is two inches, no matter how much it may look like 50.8mm. On the other hand,
50mm is 50mm. An electrician can use the same colour of wire for either 
active or nuetral, it all depends on several factors. Still, it's all done 
to the "standards", even if it can kill the inexperienced.  

    BTW, using Basic it's always been very easy to port most programs from
one machine to another, yet it's not hogtied by any standards. Haven't we
all done such porting when we first learned Basic?

        John

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