Re: Flex 2.5.23 beta and C++

[Hans-Bernhard Broeker]

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.