ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5 N1643 

         Request to reconsider removing statement functions

                  Van Snyder, on behalf of J3 USTAG

An action item concerning WG5 resulted from the J3 USTAG meeting at J3
meeting 173.

It was requested that WG5 reconsider removing statement functions.

Although the use of statement functions is discouraged in new programs,
processor vendors have clients who have literally billions of lines of
code, much of it legacy code from the 66 and 77 eras, and much of that
code uses statement functions.  Vendors therefore still need to support
statement functions, and will need to continue to do so indefinitely.
They see it as an advantage that the standard specifies how statement
functions work, so that when clients have a question or quibble, they
can refer attention to the standard.