Food for thought: C and the world-wide crowd

[Bernhard Reiter]

Hello everybody,
(I guess I should not, but I also couldn't resist,)
to post the lines from an interview of Dennis M. Ritchie:

| On the other hand, the "open evolution" idea has its own drawbacks,
| whether in official standards bodies or more informally, say over the
| Web or mailing lists. When I read commentary about suggestions for where
| C should go, I often think back and give thanks that it wasn't developed
| under the advice of a worldwide crowd. C is peculiar in a lot of ways,
| but it, like many other successful things, has a certain unity of
| approach that stems from development in a small group. To tell the
| truth, I don't know how Linus and his merry band manage so well -- I
| couldn't have stood it with C. 

http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-2000-12/lw-12-ritchie.html

In the article they talk about the C99 standard and Mr. Ritchie
wished the commitee would have resited even more to a lot of
suggestions.

Somehow the FSF's posistion has similarities: 
We will have to resist a lot...  
and pick the best.

	Bernhard
-- 
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