Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)
(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
it was at this point that the real research program began. clearly, the specification could not be fully contained. how, then, to minimise the damage?
after many experiments, an interesting result was found: certain programmers were apparently invulnerable. further analysis revealed that all of these programmers had something in common: they had all previously learned C by reading Kernighan and Ritchie's original C book.
Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)
(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
this mystified the committee. why would reading the book protect someone from the specification: wouldn't that familiarity with the language only make them more susceptible to it?
nonetheless, this was their only hope, and they clung to it. more experiments were done.
at long last, they obtained the critical insight: incorrect preconceived notions in the mind of the reader can protect them from correctly interpreting the specification.
1 replies
Saagar Jha
(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)
(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
with that, there was finally a workable plan. by combining an all-encompassing disinformation campaign with the standard ISO paywall, the committee could ensure that, in the first place, few would think they needed to read the specification; failing that, few would actually get hold of it; and failing that, very few would correctly understand it. with that, the specification could be "safely" released.
the rest, as they say, is history.