Rick Campbell <rick(a)campbellcentral.org> writes:
>
> From: "Raymond Wiker" <raymond(a)orion.no>
> Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 09:47:31 +0100 (CET)
>
> Rick Campbell writes:
> > As far as I can tell, while Sun is fighting Microsoft in the public
> > arena, their technical decisions are some of the biggest reasons
> > around for switching to the dark side, er, NT. I'm not sure that even
> > HPs C++ compiler is as bad as Sun's is these days. It's really kind
> > of embarrassing to have to have a zillion backward compatibility hacks
> > so that code that works with all of the ANSI compatibility that comes
> > with Visual C++ can still deal with something as archaic as
> > Sparcworks(*).
>
> I'm not excatly sure *what* you're saying here - are you
> referring to ANSI C, or ANSI C++ (or ANSI Common Lisp? Nah...)
>
> C++. I guess specifically, adherence to the CD2 as there isn't
> actually a published standard yet.
>
Yes, it is a published standard (about 2-4 months ago). You can buy a
pdf copy of the standard for $18 at the ANSI web site.
>
> > Meanwhile all their C++ effort seems to be in building
> > a friggin graphical development environment. Like, someone should
> > tell them that you're supposed to get the core functionality in place
> > before you starting playing with the bells and whistles. Jeez.
>
> Seems to work for Microsoft :-)
>
> Definitely, but what's sad is that Sun is doing it to the point that
> they're making Microsoft look good by comparison.
>
Sun made a decision to NOT release a new compiler until the standard
was released. Many of the new features required by the standard will
break object code linking compatability with their current compilers.
They told their customers that they would do this only once. To be
sure of this, they had to wait for a final standard. They are aware
of the standard status, since the chairman of the comittee is a Sun
employee.
That said, I expected their new compiler to be released (not just
beta) sooner after the standard was finalized.
Darron Shaffer