Re- X3J16

[Robert Jervis]

> 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?

NCEG is chartered to produce a Technical Report.  I have a real problem
with your use of the phrase "wish list" to describe their work.  It dismisses
several years of work by a number of very hard working people.  Several of
the NCEG proposals are already implemented by vendors.  
> 
> 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.

Gee, that last part sounds like the credo of X3J16, NOT.

> 
> 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.
> 
Actually, I would expect the NCEG stuff to be decided fairly soon, like in
a year or so for the parts that are finished.  I'll have a better sense of
this after the December X3J11 meeting.

> 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.

I didn't hear anyone ask X3J16 to accept all of NCEG right now.  Actually,
I would expect that X3J16 is going to have a much harder time figuring out
how to make the NCEG extensions work in C++.  The extensions are written in
terms of the C Standard, so I'm pretty confident that they work in the 
Standard as written.  C++ has lots of other features that have to be
considered for the impact of each of the NCEG proposals.  Just 'restrict',
for example, has to be fitted into the overloading mechanism and who knows
what else.

Since the impact on C++ is so much greater, I would think that X3J16 should 
start educating itself on NCEG if they had any interest in adopting any
part of them, ever.

Bob J