Comment by tempodox
3 years ago
> Even among people who control all the cards, they are in many respects fundamentally incapable of imagining a better world or seizing on that opportunity to try and create one, let alone doing so in a timely fashion.
That does sound soul-crushing. Congrats on this achievement!
This is simply wrong. We (the ISO wg14) don't hold the cards, compilers are free to implement what ever they want, users are free to use what ever tools or languages they want.
We exist only as long as we are trusted to be good stewards, and only go forward with the consensus of the wider community.
You're both right.
It's amazing that you and the ISO team are good stewards of the C standard. Thank you for being part of that.
And it can also be true that it was "hell" and "hardly worth it" for the OP to get a new feature added to the language. I believe it was a miserable experience that has him questioning how he spends his time.
Both can be true. Thank you for your efforts. And thank the OP for his efforts too.
> > Even among people who control all the cards, they are in many respects fundamentally incapable of imagining a better world or seizing on that opportunity to try and create one, let alone doing so in a timely fashion.
> This is simply wrong. We (the ISO wg14) don't hold the cards, compilers are free to implement what ever they want, users are free to use what ever tools or languages they want.
This is an incredibly oblivious realization of JeanHeyd's point.
> (the ISO wg14) don't hold the cards
That "standard" card seem to be a pretty huge one though.
Yeah, but a document doesn't compile c code so best to stay humble. :-)
I think in our reality the prerequisite for holding all the cards is the lack of competence in knowing how to improve the world. We've gotten where we are now through sheer force of will of those that are empty handed.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
George Bernard Shaw