Re: definition of "implicit" inline?

[dewar at gnat dot com (Robert Dewar)]

> Certainly, but you asked for the reason -why- we had two syntaxes to
> say the same thing in the first place.  That is the reason.  
> I think that anyone who seriously wants to argue about C++ should
> read its history and especially "The Design and Evolution of C++" or
> else he would miss the most important points and do bogus claims.
> That, probably, is a key difference between Ada and C++.

No, you miss my point. There is an ISO standard for C++. The meaning of C++
is entirely contained within this history *WITHOUT* any reference to history.
That's the fundamental meaning of an ISO standard.

So from a formal point of view, an implementor need look only at the ISO
standard. Now, in cases where the standard does not prescribe things, it is
fine (in both C++ and Ada, there is absolutely no difference here, you are
imagining a difference, after all Ada is older than C++ from a standards
point of view :-) to take normal usage into account.

But your (somewhat hysterical I must say) claims that all C++ programmers
behave in a certain way with regard to the use and expectations of inline
is clearly unsupportable.

Why? Because clearly just from the input on the list, there is no such
consensus. You can't make a consensus by shouting louder.

So there really seems a problem that, to a much greater extent than is the
case with Ada, the programmer's intentions are not so clear with respect to
inline.