Re: Language Design Mistakes (was "not intended...")

[dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

John Walker said

<<It is not at all clear that MIL-STD-1815 was merely a "draft" for
1815A.  I have heard both that the differences between the two
versions were profound and crucial, *and* that they were relatively
modest.>>

Both are true. There are changes that from a fundamental semantic point
of view are quite significant, and in fact that corrected major errors
that caused significant semantic problems, and significant implementation
problems (remember that at NYU we implemented the 79 and 80 drafts, or
tried to, as well as implementing the final standard). On the other hand,
the changes from a users point of view were indeed relatively modest.

The 1980 MIL standard was indeed a draft. No one implemented it, nor could
it have been successfully and completely implemented, given some significant
semantic problems.