stability

[Walter Bright]

Edward Diener wrote:
> Without a specification for each language release a computer language 
> just ends up being a small club of those in the know rather than a 
> useful product for end-users to create modules and applications.

Nearly all major languages had detailed and accurate specifications 
produced for them only *after* they became widely adopted.

Languages that start out with a detailed and accurate specification tend 
to be failures.

Some reasons:

1) It's exceedingly hard work to do a spec. That makes it not worthwhile 
unless there are very large forces to make it worthwhile (like a huge 
user base).

2) It takes a long time to produce a spec, so long that the language may 
become obsolete before it has a chance (cue Ada).

3) Producing a spec in advance means you've frozen in place design 
decisions that may turn out to be horribly, horribly wrong, but yet the 
language is stuck with them (cue exported templates).