While covering more than C, SPECS was an interesting attempt to create a more sane syntax for C++. Ultimately, as can be seen, it failed to be adopted, but there is some very interesting stuff in there.
I find it interesting to see how many of the projects to fix the old C syntax have hit on the same things. I don't like some of the things in SPECS, but it appears to be very well thought out. Damian Conway is a very, very smart person (I know of him from the Perl world).
Here is a link:
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/papers/PDF/SPECS.pdfNote that SPECS was from 1996. Almost 20 years ago.
Best,
Kyle
