From bill@amber.ssd.csd.harris.com Tue Mar 17 22:29:00 1992 Received: from travis.csd.harris.com by dkuug.dk via EUnet with SMTP (5.64+/8+bit/IDA-1.2.8) id AA08045; Tue, 17 Mar 92 22:29:00 +0100 Received: from amber.ssd.csd.harris.com by travis.csd.harris.com (5.61/harris-5.1) id AA15508; Tue, 17 Mar 92 16:28:05 -0500 Received: by amber.ssd.csd.harris.com (5.61/CX/UX-5.0) id AA20691; Tue, 17 Mar 92 16:27:54 -0500 Date: Tue, 17 Mar 92 16:27:54 -0500 From: bill@amber.ssd.csd.harris.com (Bill Leonard) Message-Id: <9203172127.AA20691@amber.ssd.csd.harris.com> To: gls@Think.COM Cc: walt@netcom.com, SC22WG5@dkuug.dk In-Reply-To: Guy Steele's message of Tue, 17 Mar 92 15:45:15 EST <9203172045.AA04935@strident.think.com> Subject: (SC22WG5.59) Future procedures X-Charset: ASCII X-Char-Esc: 29 > From: Guy Steele > X-Sequence: SC22WG5@dkuug.dk 59 > Date: Tue, 17 Mar 92 15:45:15 EST > X-Charset: ASCII > X-Char-Esc: 29 > \begin{flame} > Let me be blunt. The rules are not designed to guarantee any kind of > technical progress; they are (theoretically) designed first and > foremost to enforce due process, and to permit technical progress as > much as possible within that structure. And you had better believe that > you want that due process; that's what protects you, as a committee > member making decisions that could affect the livelihoods of thousands > of people, from certain kinds of legal liability. Bravo! Bravo! Gee, I wish I had said that! > What the technical weenies (and I count myself in that set) have not > faced up to is the possibility that the majority actually prefers not > to make any technical progress! Maybe the Fortran community would > have been better served by leaving Fortran 77 alone! Or, more to the > point, maybe a majority of the Fortran community *thinks* it would > have been better off without Fortran 90. There is one other point I'd like to add to this. I believe that last statement of Guy's is dead on target, but it begs the question of why X3J3 is so determined to go in a different direction than the majority wishes! I don't believe X3J3 is very representative of the user community, and this is evidence of that fact. Of course, you cannot compel the people to become involved in the standards process. But there are things you can do to compensate for the fact that the standards body is not representative: 1. Hold Public Reviews of the document(s) that describe the goals of the next revision. This needs to be an honest and open review, and it should be well-publicized and long enough to get adequate feedback. The committee also needs to be ready to scrap those goals, or make major revisions, if the public indicates they do not agree with them. 2. Hold Public Reviews at intermediate stages of a revision cycle. Pay attention to the feedback you get from these. This might require some cooperation from X3, but I don't think that would be too hard to get, especially if you tell them it is to forestall major criticism late in the process. The first step is to recognize that the committee does not adequately represent the majority of its consumers. Bill Leonard Harris Computer Systems Division 2101 W. Cypress Creek Road Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309 bill@ssd.csd.harris.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- He that does not remember the past is doomed to forget where he parked. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------