Last year I finished the school year early because of the coronavirus lockdown and had too much free time - so I wrote an interpreter for CLR bytecode (https://github.com/Leowbattle/clr_lite). The ECMA-335 standard contained everything I needed to know for that project: documentation of the EXE format, VM instructions, etc.

I learned a lot doing this project, and I would never have been able to do it without free access to the standard. So I think Tim is right to recognise the value open standards provide to hobbyist programmers.

> ECMAScript

ECMAScript is nowadays amusing because the ISO standard for it is literally a single page document… that normatively references the ECMA published document.

Apparently 3 pages. AND STILL COSTS 38 CHF ($40 USD)! https://www.iso.org/standard/73002.html

I mean, you can download the PDF version for free here: https://standards.iso.org/ittf/PubliclyAvailableStandards/c0...

ANSI for languages now operates under the aegis of ISO. For the C and C++ languages, ANSI is one of the voting member bodies.

I think "ECMA C#" lags behind C# as implemented in .NET, but still.