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Most developers never read the standard in the first place. I don't see how is this important though. We did not have a standard till 1998, yet somehow managed

Most developers never read the standard in the first place. I don't see how is this important though. We did not have a standard till 1998, yet somehow managed to use C++. Same as with C, which had been used very successfully standard-less for almost two decades.

pjmlp 13y ago
> Most developers never read the standard in the first place. I don't see how is this important though. Do you write portable code in C and C++ across disparate systems and OSs, using multiple compilers? I used to do that between 1994 and 2001. Don't miss those days of hit-and-miss about compiler support. > We did not have a standard till 1998, yet somehow managed to use C++. Yes we did. It was called the Annotated Reference Manual, used as basis for the standard, coupled with articles from The C++ Report, The C Users Journal (latter The C/C++ Users Journal). > Same as with C, which had been used very successfully standard-less for almost two decades. It works if you only care about one specific compiler. On those days the standard was the AT&T UNIX compiler.
- pandaman 13y ago
  Obviously, you cannot write portable system code. You can do conditional compilation to target multiple platforms though. And when you do that you realize two things: 1. No compiler is fully compliant with any standard. 2. Every compiler has bugs so even the compliant parts can be unusable. And then you realize it's not a big deal. Changes between platforms are greater than changes between compilers. When your targets have different endianness or, even better, mixed endianness between different PUs - the standard compliance of your code is the least of your worries. >It works if you only care about one specific compiler. Also works if you care about a finite number of specific compilers and architectures. >On those days the standard was the AT&T UNIX compiler. There were, probably, hundreds of compilers and C flavors even before the ANSI C. What one thought was "the standard" was very subjective.
  - pjmlp 13y ago
    > Obviously, you cannot write portable system code.. Sure, but the goal is to minimize system dependencies as much as possible. Relying on language extensions works against it. > There were, probably, hundreds of compilers and C flavors even before the ANSI C. What one thought was "the standard" was very subjective. Yes, I do remember variants like Small C.

pjmlp 13y ago

> Most developers never read the standard in the first place. I don't see how is this important though. Do you write portable code in C and C++ across disparate systems and OSs, using multiple compilers? I used to do that between 1994 and 2001. Don't miss those days of hit-and-miss about compiler support. > We did not have a standard till 1998, yet somehow managed to use C++. Yes we did. It was called the Annotated Reference Manual, used as basis for the standard, coupled with articles from The C++ Report, The C Users Journal (latter The C/C++ Users Journal). > Same as with C, which had been used very successfully standard-less for almost two decades. It works if you only care about one specific compiler. On those days the standard was the AT&T UNIX compiler.

pandaman 13y ago
Obviously, you cannot write portable system code. You can do conditional compilation to target multiple platforms though. And when you do that you realize two things: 1. No compiler is fully compliant with any standard. 2. Every compiler has bugs so even the compliant parts can be unusable. And then you realize it's not a big deal. Changes between platforms are greater than changes between compilers. When your targets have different endianness or, even better, mixed endianness between different PUs - the standard compliance of your code is the least of your worries. >It works if you only care about one specific compiler. Also works if you care about a finite number of specific compilers and architectures. >On those days the standard was the AT&T UNIX compiler. There were, probably, hundreds of compilers and C flavors even before the ANSI C. What one thought was "the standard" was very subjective.
- pjmlp 13y ago
  > Obviously, you cannot write portable system code.. Sure, but the goal is to minimize system dependencies as much as possible. Relying on language extensions works against it. > There were, probably, hundreds of compilers and C flavors even before the ANSI C. What one thought was "the standard" was very subjective. Yes, I do remember variants like Small C.