Robert Dewar writes:
>The only time that it is reasonable to extend is when there are clear
>signals from the standards committee that it is likely that a feature
>will be added, in which case there may be an argument for adding the
>feature "prematurely".
I completely disagree. Standards should primarily standardize existing
practice, not inventing new features. New features should be created
by people who actually want and will use the features, not by some
disinterested committee.
GCC has always been a place for experimenting with new features. Many of
the new features in C99 had already been implemented GCC. Even in the
cases where C99 standardized features differently, I think both GCC and
Standard C benefited from the work done in GCC.
Ross Ridge
