Richard Conn wrote: > Just in case you missed it, this is the text of what Mike said: > > My Prentice-Hall Dictionary of Computing says (1998, p.627): > > "STANDARDS. > > Clearly defined and agreed-upon conventions for programming > intefaces. Standards may be (bullets mine) > > - proprietary (used only within the environment provided by a single > computer vendor), > > - public (widely used across a variety of vendor equipment), or > > - formal (developed by a standards organization such as ANSI or ISO)." > Given that a formal standard exists for C++ it would seem strange to refer to a a proprietary implementation as Microsoft's standard for C++ (Would you say Gnat is the ACT standard for Ada?). If there are two "standards" then clearly there is no standard.