Re: specifications (was Re: Languages: The Bigger the Uglier)

Henry Baker <hbaker@netcom.com> wrote:
>Uh... Don't 'de facto' standards already use an 'implementation' for
>the standard? I.e., 'your fortran has to be compatible with
>DEC/Cray/IBM...'....


Good point. Although, if you're writing a Fortran compiler, you don't
have to do *exactly* what those pre-existing compilers do in all cases
(that's not feasible) -- you just have to do exactly what they do for
the programs that most of your customers care about.


For C, if you know that lots of programs assume int and char* are the
same size, and can be inter-converted, then you better support that,
whether or not the Standard says so.


- Bob
--

Return to the comp.compilers page.
Search the comp.compilers archives again.