Re- X3J16

[Bill Gibbons]

  Re: X3J16
> Just curious... is anyone who is in the NCEG also on X3J16?
> 
> The reason I ask is that I have just seen a list of things that the
> "extensions working group" of X3J16 plans to be working on in the
> near future, and I don't see any mention in it of folding any of the
> NCEG stuff into the (forthcomming) C++ standard.
> 
> I find that rather unfortunate.

I find it rather unfortuate that the NCEG work was done far too late for
X3J16 to take into consideration.  But surely we can't afford an extra
year's delay (or more) of the C++ standard.

Actually, I was under the impression that it might be a long time before
X3J11 approved part or all of the NCEG work.  Wasn't NCEG's charter to
generate a "wish list", as a guide for X3J11 to use in enhancing C to
be more useful for numeric work?

There are many parts of the NCEG work which, while useful in a language
designed *only* for numeric work, are cumbersome for a general-purpose
language.  It was entirely appropriate for NCEG to propose every feature
which would be useful.  It would also be appropriate for X3J11 to reject
or scale back many of the proposals.  That would not be a criticism of
NCEG, but rather a recognition that you can't add every feature which
might be useful to some group.

The debate over which of the NCEG proposals should be adopted into C and
C++ will likely take years.  Certainly too long for X3J16 to wait.

On the other hand, X3J16 should probably be doing a better job of
tracking the NCEG work, and the X3J11 (as a whole) reaction to that work,
For example, X3J16 is about to approve a construct which would involve
putting "<" and ">" together.  Should this be written "<>" or "< >" ?
At the least, X3J16 needs to be aware of any possible conflicts.

But add all the NCEG proposals to C++ at this time?  Impossible.


Bill Gibbons
bgibbonsataligent.com