Re: Flex 2.5.23 beta and C++

[Wojciech Fraczak]

Hans, please, stop it. 

I feel embarrassed for you. 

W.

PS. By the way, c++ advocates have probably their own mailing list. It
    shouldn't be hard to find.



Hans-Bernhard Broeker writes:
 > On Wed, 23 Oct 2002, W. L. Estes wrote:
 > 
 > > On Wednesday, 23 October 2002,15:28 +0200, Hans Aberg wrote:
 > > 
 > > > Are you writing code for eternity? :-)
 > > 
 > > No, but the current flex c++ code used to be valid c++. 
 > 
 > Not really. Because there was no really applicable definition of what
 > 'valid c++' might be.  Before the C++ Standard, C++ code validity was
 > *only* judgeable by the "compiles with compiler XYZ" criterion --- which
 > is obviously silly.
 > 
 > > I find it annoying that the c++ standard broke code I'm now
 > > responsible for.
 > 
 > It didn't quite "break" it --- because the current C++ standard is the
 > first and only definition in existence so far of what C++ actually is, all
 > C++ code that was written before may as well be considered to have been
 > broken ever since it was started.  The fact that the final C++ standard
 > took so long to make it into the shape of actual compilers that really
 > follow it certainly didn't help.
 > 
 > The C++ standardization team faced a couple of really tough dilemmas,
 > whenever they found something was broken in the language's existing
 > pre-standard versions: they could either break other people's work, or
 > break their own work.  Given the timescales of revision of their work, I
 > personally agree with their usual decision of doing their own job
 > properly.  Code will hardly ever be left unmoidified for 10+ years, but
 > programming language standardization usually does.  
 > 
 > So, IMHO, the code was broken for a long while--- it just went by
 > unnoticed because the compilers hadn't caught up to the definition of the
 > language, yet.  Now that they have, the problems show up.
 > 
 > -- 
 > Hans-Bernhard Broeker (address@hidden)
 > Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.
 > 
 > 
 > 
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