Marty Fouts wrote:
> My own opinion is that no, the nominal cost of standards documents has
> little to do with why programmers don't have complete and up to date
> definitions of the language.
I can't change your opinion but I can tell you a fact: this is the
reason that *I* do not have a copy of the standard. If I could just
download it from a URL I would have done it long ago. Not that I can't
afford it, it's just too much of a pain in the butt.
> Most of them, after all, are willing to pay
> 3-4 times that much for tutorial or text books on the language, often more
> than one. My opinion is that few C or C++ programmers actually possess
> complete and up to date definitions of the language, because many of them
> are unaware of or uninterested in the existence of such standards, because
> they believe that the dielect of the language they are using on their
> platform of choice is, for their purposes, the language, and so they believe
> they only need the vendor reference for the language. Also, standards are
> written in a peculiar style and dialect, and they require developing a
> certain kind of reading skill to be useful.
I think you are wrong. No, that's too week. I *know* you are wrong.
If there was no cost in getting the standard every last one of us would
have it, the same way every last one of us has a copy of the kernel.
Consider this: if Linux costed $18, most of us wouldn't be here.
Charging a toll on the standard is just plain evil. If ansi needs
money, let them get it some other way than by having a monopoly on this
public information.
Gack.
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Sep 30 2000 - 21:00:24 EST