2.1 vs. 2.2

[Alex Martelli]

Tim Peters wrote:
        ...
> (although, in the case of languages, they're likely to find that the
> eventual standard is carefully worded to allow all variations that already
> exist).

Not what I saw happen in the small set of languages whose standardization
I had to follow.  With C++, in particular, the standard was so far from
"allowing all variations that already existed" that, AFAIK, still today, 
years later, no commercial implementation claims 100% standard compliance
(something that I still find rather amazing).  Of course, the usefulness
of that is as dubious as that of a standard which did allow everything.


Alex