5 Jan
2012
5 Jan
'12
6:03 p.m.
On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Go and read some standards. It was FORTRAN before
F90, but part of
the ANSI F90 standard is that "Fortran" is acceptable.
Do any programmers who use a language actually read the standard for
it?
From what you said earlier, about "inventing
language", perhaps it would
be equally valid to ask
Do any language standards writers actually USE it?
My impression was that each and every committee member wanted a completely
different language than the current language. ("fortran should look like
Pascal!" "Fortran should be as 'elf-documenting' as COBOL!", etc.)
And,
each one wanted complete standardization on THAT committee member's unique
implementation. OK, WE aren't exceptions. I want every language to use
.EQ. for comparision, and an arrow for assignment.
// for comments in C is actually convenient, but it is a serious break
from the original CONCEPT of newline being nothing more
than "whitespace".