Topic: ANSI - C++ Conformance?


Author: herbs@interlog.com (Herb Sutter)
Date: 1995/04/13
Raw View
In article <3mfe18$1i1@News1.mcs.com>,
   jim.fleming@bytes.com (Jim Fleming) wrote:
>Jim Fleming            /|\      Unir Corporation       Unir Technology, Inc.
>%Techno Cat I        /  | \     One Naperville Plaza   184 Shuman Blvd. #100
>Penn's Landing      /   |  \    Naperville, IL 60563   Naperville, IL 60563

  Mr. Fleming,

  You have not responded to my earlier warnings about Unir Corp.  Since
Unir Corp. was dissolved by your state government several months ago
(according to them, for failing to file returns and pay fees), your
continuing to use the name "Unir Corp." in your .sig appears to be illegal
under the Business Code Act applicable in your jurisdiction.

  If you have reregistered Unir Corp. in another jurisdiction, this is yet
another chance for you to say so.  If you still won't respond and I
continue to see you using that name apparently illegally in your .sig over
the next few days, I will be forced in good conscience to bring it to your
Secretary of State's office's attention, since I've seen people respond to
you with honest inquiries about Unir Corp. without realising that company
does not exist.  Other netters might be less patient and may already have
contacted your Secretary of State's office.

  I use words like "appears" and "apparently" because I want to give you
the benefit of the doubt in case I don't have all the proper information.
In particular, I have so far avoided using the word "fraud".  The text of
my original research follows:




  According to the Illinois Secretary of State, Corporate Division, Unir
Corp.'s "licence was revoked 11/1/94."  According to the County Clerk for
Naperville IL, Recorder's Office, Unir Corp.'s "dissolution" was effective
"12/94" (ref. document #94-237612).  In that document, the reason cited by
the clerk's office for the dissolution was:  "Failed to file annual report
or pay annual franchise fee."  On Friday, April 7, 1995, the Secretary of
State's office commented regarding Unir Corp.'s prior owner using Unir
Corp.'s name in current business:  "If he is, he's in violation of the
Business Code Act."

  According to the County Clerk for Naperville IL, Recorder's Office, Unir
Technology Inc. was chartered in 9/93 (ref. document #93-203098).  The
senior officers registered for the corporation were:  Agent (James R.
Fleming); President (James R. Fleming); and Secretary (Virginia Cooney).
The address given was 2130 Nachtman, Wheaton IL 60187.  I have not been
able to discover the existence of more than just these two employees, so
Unir does not appear to be a real software house or a reliable compiler or
language vendor.

  Complaints about Illinois companies' business practices should be lodged
with the Secretary of State's office and the Better Business Bureau.  (See
contact information below.)


  Sources:

  The Illinois Secretary of State, Corporate Division, can be reached in
Chicago at voice (312) 793-3380.

  The County Clerk for Naperville IL, Recorder's Office, can be reached
voice at (708) 682-7000.

  Copies of Unir Corp.'s and Unir Technology Inc.'s articles of
incorporation can be ordered for $5 from a government office in
Springfield IL, which can be reached voice at (217) 782-6875.

  The Naperville IL Chamber of Commerce can be reached voice at (708)
355-4141.  They claim Unir is not registered, nor have they heard of Unir.

  The Northern Illinois Better Business Bureau provides information about
any past complaints about Illinois companies and how they were handled,
and can be reached voice at (312) 346-3313 between 10am and 2:30pm local
time.  They charge $3 or so for the information over the phone; if you
send your inquiry by mail they will send a reply the same week.


---
Herb Sutter             #include <std_disclaimer.h>
herbs@interlog.com      "Me?  Paranoid?  ... Uh, why do you ask?"





Author: clamage@Eng.Sun.COM (Steve Clamage)
Date: 1995/04/12
Raw View
jim.fleming@bytes.com (Jim Fleming) writes:


>What is the relationship of STL to the book, "The Draft Standard C++
>Library", by P.J. Plauger (ISBN 0-13-117003-1)? As far as I can tell
>that book does not mention a "linked list" class

>That particular Draft standard does mention dynarray and ptrdynarray.

That book reflected the state of the draft standard as of early 1994.
After that time, STL was added to the draft, and dynarray and
ptrdynarray were removed. Other portions of the library were modified.
--
Steve Clamage, stephen.clamage@eng.sun.com





Author: jim.fleming@bytes.com (Jim Fleming)
Date: 1995/04/12
Raw View
In article <3mgpfv$s37@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM>, clamage@Eng.Sun.COM says...
>
>jim.fleming@bytes.com (Jim Fleming) writes:
>
>
>>What is the relationship of STL to the book, "The Draft Standard C++
>>Library", by P.J. Plauger (ISBN 0-13-117003-1)? As far as I can tell
>>that book does not mention a "linked list" class
>
>>That particular Draft standard does mention dynarray and ptrdynarray.
>
>That book reflected the state of the draft standard as of early 1994.
>After that time, STL was added to the draft, and dynarray and
>ptrdynarray were removed. Other portions of the library were modified.
>--
>Steve Clamage, stephen.clamage@eng.sun.com


Are you saying that book is already obsolete?

The Copyright says 1995.
The first books hit the book store in September 1994.

Are you saying that books like this have a useful life of...
 ...less than 6 months...???

(or is it a "history" book?)

--
Jim Fleming            /|\      Unir Corporation       Unir Technology, Inc.
%Techno Cat I        /  | \     One Naperville Plaza   184 Shuman Blvd. #100
Penn's Landing      /   |  \    Naperville, IL 60563   Naperville, IL 60563
East End, Tortola  |____|___\   1-708-505-5801         1-800-222-UNIR(8647)
British Virgin Islands__|______ 1-708-305-3277 (FAX)   1-708-305-0600
                 \__/-------\__/       e-mail: jim.fleming@bytes.com
Smooth Sailing on Cruising C+@amarans  ftp: 199.3.34.12 <-----stargate----+
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\____to the end of the OuterNet_|






Author: andys@thone.demon.co.uk (Andy Sawyer)
Date: 1995/04/12
Raw View
In article <3mgtbj$ob6@News1.mcs.com> jim.fleming@bytes.com "Jim Fleming" writes:

> >jim.fleming@bytes.com (Jim Fleming) writes:
> >
> >>What is the relationship of STL to the book, "The Draft Standard C++
> >>Library", by P.J. Plauger (ISBN 0-13-117003-1)? As far as I can tell
> >>that book does not mention a "linked list" class
> >

[then later:]
> Are you saying that book is already obsolete?
>
> The Copyright says 1995.
> The first books hit the book store in September 1994.
>

 So you had six mnonths during which the material in the book was not
copyright...interesting.

> Are you saying that books like this have a useful life of...
>         ...less than 6 months...???
>

 You mean books with the word "Draft" in the title? "Draft" - as in not
final. Imcomplete. Unfinished. In a state of flux. Likely to be revised.
Get the idea?

> (or is it a "history" book?)

No - it WAS a peek into ONE possible future.

Andy
--
* Andy Sawyer ** e-mail:andys@thone.demon.co.uk ** Compu$erve:100432,1713 **
 The opinions expressed above are my own, but you are granted the right to
 use and freely distribute them. I accept no responsibility for any injury,
 harm or damage arising from their use.                --   The Management.





Author: jim.fleming@bytes.com (Jim Fleming)
Date: 1995/04/12
Raw View
In article <3med5q$qqj@offas_dike.sbil.co.uk>, shepherd@debussy.sbi.com
says...
>
>In article okc@steel.interlog.com, dgenn@interlog.com (Dan Gennidakis)
writes:
>>Can anyone describe what stl is for me and the benefits or ramifications
of
>>using it.Is this going to be part of the C++ standard and why?
>
>STL is an extensible library of algorithms and data structures.  It has
been
>adopted by the ANSI/ISO committee and will be part of the C++ standard.
>
>You ask "why".  Well, historically there has been no de-facto standard for
>C++ container classes.  Typically, each compiler vendor provided their own.
>I have access to four different C++ compilers.  All of them come with
basically
>the same iostream interfaces, but totally different linked list classes.
[snip]
>---
>Marc Shepherd

What is the relationship of STL to the book, "The Draft Standard C++
Library", by P.J. Plauger (ISBN 0-13-117003-1)? As far as I can tell
that book does not mention a "linked list" class

That particular Draft standard does mention dynarray and ptrdynarray.

Quoting from the book...

 17.5.5 Header <dynarray>
 The header <dynarray> defines a template class and several
 related functions for representing and manipulating varying-size
 sequences of some object type T.
...
 17.5.6 Header <ptrdynarray>
 The header <ptrdynarray> defines a template and several related
 functions for representing and manipulating varying-size sequences
 of pointers to some object type T.

Will linked lists and containers from STL be compatible with these
"dynamic arrays"?

Why aren't the STL classes documented in the above book? The banner on
the book says, "Based on draft proposed ANSI/ISO C++ Standard".

On a more general note, I thought that this newsgroup was supposed
to be used to discuss the ANSI/ISO standard for the C++ "language".
Now you seem to be implying that not only the language is being
standardized but also a class library. Is there any other thing that
is being standardized? For example, the development environment.

Did it occur to any of the people that are standardizing the language
that adding a class library can complicate the standards process and
potentially cloud the issues and cause the focus to be shifted away
from the language design? For example, if we were standardizing English
and we decided to throw in some sample "standard legal documents written
in English", we could end up spending more time discussing the contents
of those documents than the goals, syntax and semantics of English.
Those legal documents might be of little use to people using English
to write novels.

While I have felt for many years that the developers of C++ were
foolish in prematurely releasing a language before there was a mature
class library, I do not understand how the rather formal ANSI standards
process should be circumvented to add items to a standard that belong
in a separate standard. This is going to make compliance by compiler
companies more difficult, because they not only have to comply with
a very complex language spec, but they also have to comply with a
standard class library that may not meet their needs or the needs of
their users. (For example, what if I prefer to offer thye class Array
because I feel that it is more lucid than the term "dynarray").

Or on another note, in Microsoft's Visual C++ Foundation Class Library
Reference (Vol. 3 of 6), ISBN 1-55615-801-7 they clearly describe
the classes CArray (page 33) and CList (page 391). Are these compatible
with the above book with "dynarray"s? Is the Microsoft CList class
the same as the STL List class? When THE standard is complete, is
Microsoft going to change this 6 volume set of books to comply with
the standard?

What is compliance going to mean, if and when this massive and evidently
growing standard is completed? Will it mean syntax and semantic compliance
or also will the "standard" class library have to comply?

This newsgroup is supposed to be concerned with the standardization
of The C++ Programming Language. Has the scope of the effort grown
so that more than this newsgroup is needed? Do we need to propose
the following newsgroups?

 comp.std.c++.language
 comp.std.c++.classes
 comp.std.c++.classes.microsoft
 comp.std.c++.classes.plum_hall
 comp.std.c++.classes.STL
 comp.std.c++.classes.std

--
Jim Fleming            /|\      Unir Corporation       Unir Technology, Inc.
%Techno Cat I        /  | \     One Naperville Plaza   184 Shuman Blvd. #100
Penn's Landing      /   |  \    Naperville, IL 60563   Naperville, IL 60563
East End, Tortola  |____|___\   1-708-505-5801         1-800-222-UNIR(8647)
British Virgin Islands__|______ 1-708-305-3277 (FAX)   1-708-305-0600
                 \__/-------\__/       e-mail: jim.fleming@bytes.com
Smooth Sailing on Cruising C+@amarans  ftp: 199.3.34.12 <-----stargate----+
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\____to the end of the OuterNet_|