Re: ECMA standard or forking the language?

On 29/04/2005, at 11:23 PM, Grant Rettke wrote:

> So, the ECMA is using the draft for languague experimentation?
>
> Somehow I don't think that the ECMA C# draft will be undergoing drastic
> changes anytime soon.

They already have: http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~sestoft/ecma/

The original ECMA C# standard isn't a draft: it's been a standard for 
some years. Furthermore, the whole thing could be regarded as 
experimental: it was a brand new language.

The above link discusses the draft for the C# 2.0 specification. C# 2.0 
is a drastic change from C# 1.0, introducing lots of new stuff: 
generics, partial types, nullable types, etc. One thing they aren't 
doing, as far as I know, is invalidating existing C# programs in the 
manner that Richard O'Keefe showed is happening to Eiffel.

Languages change. Some changes are bad, but some are good progress. I'm 
mostly pleased by what's happening to Eiffel. I think the language is 
in very good hands.

- Peter Gummer