Re: Technical specifications are worthless?

The economics of C++ are quite different from the economics of Web
languages. The difference is that the pain of incompatibilities in C++
compilers is almost completely borne by a relatively small number of skilled
developers, who are able to work around those incompatibilities so they do
not affect end users. On the other hand the pain of incompatibilities in Web
browsers is directly experienced by users, who are unable to do anything to
reduce that pain except switch to another vendor's product.

If Web sites served C++ source code that users compiled and ran, you can be
certain that compiler vendors would be reverse engineering popular compilers
and C++ software and implementing whatever quirks were needed to get that
software to run as-is. People would want a "C++5" document describing those
quirks.

I'm not sure where else other than the Web you find such a huge set of
authors deploying source code to users to run on a set of genuinely
multi-vendor platform implementations.

Rob
-- 
"He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are
healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his
own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." [Isaiah
53:5-6]