Do you have the C or C++ standard? (serious question)

C

Chris Hills

Hi,

It came up in a standards panel meeting the other day that "all c or C++
programmers" have a copy of ISO C and/or C++ ...

I challenged this and said most don't (outside those working on the
standards).

Well, do most of you have a copy of the relevant ISO language standard
of your own or is there one on your desk at work?
 
I

Ian Collins

Chris said:
Hi,

It came up in a standards panel meeting the other day that "all c or C++
programmers" have a copy of ISO C and/or C++ ...

I challenged this and said most don't (outside those working on the
standards).

Well, do most of you have a copy of the relevant ISO language standard
of your own or is there one on your desk at work?
Yes, both hard copy and PDF.
 
J

jacob navia

Chris said:
Hi,

It came up in a standards panel meeting the other day that "all c or C++
programmers" have a copy of ISO C and/or C++ ...

I challenged this and said most don't (outside those working on the
standards).

Well, do most of you have a copy of the relevant ISO language standard
of your own or is there one on your desk at work?

This will not work. Who will say in public

"I do not have the standard's copy" ???

This is a biased question. Everybody will swear you they have it
and they read it every night... when they can't sleep.

:)

jacob
 
J

Jim Langston

Chris Hills said:
Hi,

It came up in a standards panel meeting the other day that "all c or C++
programmers" have a copy of ISO C and/or C++ ...

I challenged this and said most don't (outside those working on the
standards).

Well, do most of you have a copy of the relevant ISO language standard of
your own or is there one on your desk at work?

No, I don't have a copy of the standard for C or C++ and I think that most
programmers don't.
 
C

Chris Hills

jacob navia said:
This will not work. Who will say in public
"I do not have the standard's copy" ???
This is a biased question. Everybody will swear you they have it
and they read it every night... when they can't sleep.

I have asked this question in several places and the majority have said
they do not have a copy of the language standard for c or C++

Many have the K&R2 or the BS books but as far as most are concerned the
compiler manuals are more important than the standard.
 
Z

Zara

Hi,

It came up in a standards panel meeting the other day that "all c or C++
programmers" have a copy of ISO C and/or C++ ...

I challenged this and said most don't (outside those working on the
standards).

Well, do most of you have a copy of the relevant ISO language standard
of your own or is there one on your desk at work?

I have C++Std over my desk, and C99 3 meters away

Zara
 
R

Richard Tobin

Well, do most of you have a copy of the relevant ISO language standard
of your own or is there one on your desk at work?

I have the C standards, but I rarely refer to them except when posting
in comp.lang.c. If I need to look something up I'm more likely to use
K&R or (for library functions) the unix man pages.

-- Richard
 
L

loufoque

Chris Hills wrote :
It came up in a standards panel meeting the other day that "all c or C++
programmers" have a copy of ISO C and/or C++ ...

I only have the working drafts as PDFs that I read when I have doubts
about some stuff.

I challenged this and said most don't (outside those working on the
standards).

I think most advanced programmers that are actually interested in those
languages have at least taken a few looks at it.
 
M

Martin Steen

Chris said:
Hi,

It came up in a standards panel meeting the other day that "all c or C++
programmers" have a copy of ISO C and/or C++ ...

No, I don't have it.

I have the K&R-book (which I haven't used for years because I don't like
it) and of course Bjarne Stroustrup's C++ book (an edition from 1992)
and several other C and C++ books.

Best regards, Martin
 
K

Kai-Uwe Bux

Chris said:
Hi,

It came up in a standards panel meeting the other day that "all c or C++
programmers" have a copy of ISO C and/or C++ ...

I challenged this and said most don't (outside those working on the
standards).

Well, do most of you have a copy of the relevant ISO language standard
of your own or is there one on your desk at work?

I have the 2003 pdf version for C++ and pdf of the 1989 draft of C.


Best

Kai-Uwe Bux
 
V

Victor Bazarov

Chris said:
[..]
I have asked this question in several places and the majority have
said they do not have a copy of the language standard for c or C++

Many have the K&R2 or the BS books but as far as most are concerned
the compiler manuals are more important than the standard.

Well, good for you! The knowledge of how many programmers have a copy
of the Standard is about as useless as how many drivers have a copy
of the statute on driving/vehicles for their country/state. What is
it you're after?

V
 
R

Richard Heathfield

Chris Hills said:
Hi,

It came up in a standards panel meeting the other day that "all c or C++
programmers" have a copy of ISO C and/or C++ ...

Whoever claimed that would probably claim, when faced with a counter-example
(of which there are many), that the counter-example is not a *true* C or
C++ programmer! :)

(All Scotsmen are engineers. Proof: the Enterprise's Scottie is an engineer.
Counter-example: Dr Cameron is not an engineer. Resolution: Dr Cameron is
not a true Scot.)

I challenged this and said most don't (outside those working on the
standards).

Yes, the claim is nonsense. Even in comp.lang.c (which has a very
disproportionately high number of Standard-reading C programmers), not
everyone has a copy.
Well, do most of you have a copy of the relevant ISO language standard
of your own or is there one on your desk at work?

I have a copy myself, but most of the C programmers I've met over the last
<cough>teen years do not, and I've never come across an employer or client
who provides a reference copy, ever.
 
R

Ron Natalie

Martin said:
I have the K&R-book (which I haven't used for years because I don't like
it) and of course Bjarne Stroustrup's C++ book (an edition from 1992)
and several other C and C++ books.
That's the second edition of Stroustrup. That's pretty pathetically out
of date but useful for quaint historical use. I've got an old ARM
around for the same reason.
 
R

Ron Natalie

Many have the K&R2 or the BS books but as far as most are concerned the
compiler manuals are more important than the standard.

The reason for the compiler manuals for me is more for things that
are outside of C++ (operating system API's) which are usually
documented there.

I rarely use the compiler manual for C++ language issues (except
to check if they are violating the standard). We write code
that needs to work with different implementations. Even if you
stick on one platform for a long time, the compilers (for example
both Visual C++ and GCC exhibit this) tend to head towards the
standards than away from it. By not understanding what constructs
are legal C++, you are in a world of hurt when you ugrade and
suddenly a lot of stuff no longer works.
 
R

Richard Tobin

Richard Heathfield said:
(All Scotsmen are engineers. Proof: the Enterprise's Scottie is an engineer.
Counter-example: Dr Cameron is not an engineer. Resolution: Dr Cameron is
not a true Scot.)

If Scottie's a Scotsman, I'm a Dutchman.

-- Richard
 
M

Mark McIntyre

Hi,

It came up in a standards panel meeting the other day that "all c or C++
programmers" have a copy of ISO C and/or C++ ...

Did they say "a copy of the ISO standard" or a copy of ISO C? The
difference to me would be that virtually anyone programming in C or
C++ must have an ISO C compiler to hand (since virtually all compilers
comply to some extent). On the other hand not everyone has a copy of
the docment.
Well, do most of you have a copy of the relevant ISO language standard
of your own or is there one on your desk at work?

Yup, one of each.

But then asking that in comp.lang.c is like asking if everyone at a
butchers convention has cleavers. :)

--
Mark McIntyre

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it."
--Brian Kernighan
 
M

Mark McIntyre

This will not work. Who will say in public
"I do not have the standard's copy" ???

Oh, heck, anyone who doesn't. Its not compulsory to own it. Asking in
CLC or CLC++ is likely to result in a higher hitrate than asking in
Sainsburys of course.

Obviously it would be different if you were asking if we had a copy of
C Unleashed... :)

--
Mark McIntyre

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it."
--Brian Kernighan
 
G

Gavin Deane

Chris said:
I have asked this question in several places and the majority have said
they do not have a copy of the language standard for c or C++

The majority I have met or worked with do not.
Many have the K&R2 or the BS books but as far as most are concerned the
compiler manuals are more important than the standard.

That's probably at least in part because you tend to get the compiler
manuals for free (the popular compilers and IDEs I've used install the
manual at the same time as the compiler, so it is right there for me)
whereas you have to go out of your way and spend money to get the
language standard.

The first C++ compiler I used professionally was MSVC++6. I anticipated
that it wouldn't be the only one. I knew that few if any compilers
implemented the language perfectly. Each would have its own gaps in
coverage and non-standard behaviours. I knew that when I started to use
a different compiler, there would be some things that worked a
particular way in MSVC++6 that were different in the new compiler. But
how to know in advance (highly preferable to painful learning through
trial and error) what those things were going to be? MSVC++6 does not
come with a list called "things we do differently from g++" and g++
does not come with a list called "things we do differently from
MSVC++6". However, both do come with their own list called "things we
do differently from the formal C++ language specification". The lists
are different for each of course. So the key is to know the formal C++
language specification [*] so you have the right context to read the
"things we differently" list provided by every compiler. By doing that
I felt that, instead of being a potential big upheaval, changing
compiler as often as needed could be a non-event.

Gavin Deane

[*] For which the only definitive source is the standard, and at $18 it
seemed like a very good deal for a definitive source.
 
R

Roal Zanazzi

Chris Hills ha scritto:
It came up in a standards panel meeting the other day that "all c or C++
programmers" have a copy of ISO C and/or C++ ...

I challenged this and said most don't (outside those working on the
standards).
I tend to agree with you here.
But I also think that most of the "gurus" in these neswgroups do have at
least their respective language standards, either PDF or hard-copy.
Well, do most of you have a copy of the relevant ISO language standard
of your own or is there one on your desk at work?
I do not have it (C++), but maybe I'll buy the PDF one, to get rid of
some of my ignorance on the language (mainly about undefined behaviour
conditions).
 

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