Re: Language design by by committee ( was Re: Try J# ( was Re: J# is there ))

[Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com>]

In article <uelo4kc1t.fsf@wanadoo.fr>, Pascal Obry says...
>
>
>Ray Blaak <blaak@telus.net> writes:
>
>> To me whether or not Ada was designed by a committee is irrelevant, and
>> perhaps semantic quibbling. Why should we care? Why does anyone care? I have
>> never understood this objection of "designed by a committee".
>
>Me too. I have never ever really understood this point. Good to hear I'm not
>the only one :)

I think this is probably an American cultural thing. However, being an American,
I do believe there is some truth in it. :-)

Perhaps Tucker Taft (and Jean Ichabah before him) weren't better programming
language designers than everyone on their respective Ada steering committes.
However, they were certianly better than the *average* of everyone on those
committes. So to my mind having the committes making all the design decisions
instead would have been just insane. Fortunately for us all, that's not the way
it worked.

Interestingly, C++'s development between 1990 and its standarization in 1998
*does* seem to have been performed by committe. Actually, not just by *a*
committe, but by a group of committees. (Stroustrup referred to them in his book
as "the joint C++ standard committees"). 

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html

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