Paddy O'Brien writes:
> With changes like .LT. to <, I cannot understand why conflict with the
> logical operators was deemed a problem. I'm sure the standard could
> have...
On a factual note, there was no change of .lt. to <. The new form was
added. The old one remains valid and not in any official way
deprecated.
But on a more philosophical note, this kind of discussion illustrates
one reason why I often don't like answering questions that begin with
"why" in regards to the standard.
There is always the problem that I mention regularly - that nobody
can give a definitive answer to such a question. All they can give
is their guess or interpretation. Sometimes the guesses have more
basis than others, but they are always that, never definitive
truths.
But the other reason is that so often people want to argue about
such things. Heck, sometimes I even disagreed with a decision,
but when I try to explain the reasons advanced in favor of it,
people want to argue with me about it.
When I explain what I think (since it is always my guesses - see
above) the rationale for some decision was, it really doesn't
matter whether you agree that this was sufficient rationale or
not. The world isn't required to follow either your or my idea
of adequate rationale (it certainly doesn't always follow mine).
Unfortunately it is very easy to seqeue from questions like
"why was this done" to comments like "but I disagree with
that". To me those are pretty much different topics.
--
Richard Maine | Good judgment comes from experience;
[log in to unmask] | experience comes from bad judgment.
| -- Mark Twain
|