From walt@netcom.com Thu Mar 19 01:37:24 1992
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Date: Wed, 18 Mar 92 16:34:53 PST
From: walt@netcom.com (Walt Brainerd)
Message-Id: <9203190034.AA10020@netcom.netcom.com>
To: SC22WG5@dkuug.dk
Subject: From market surveys to "design"
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> The problem with the last committee and with Fortran 90 is that there 
> was never a consensus in the committee of what the main target market was. 

Wrong.  There was concensus prior to about 1985 when the membership
starting changing rapidly.

> They wanted INCLUDE, CRAY Pointers, VAX Structures, REAL*, etc. etc.

And they will all say they don't want their taxes raised, but that does
not NECESSARILY mean what they say is best for the computing community.
[Insert Keith's reminder about how representation works here again.]

> You know, I'm told more all the time, that to design good software you
> must spend more time up front... get the design right.   Test the 
> design.  Prototype the design.   DON'T start coding!!! Design it and 
> verify it and spend most of the time on the project doing that...
> 
> Don't you think a standards committee should do the same?
> 
> FYI. Presley

This is exactly what X3J3 did up to about 1985 (well, approximately
what X3J3 did; it's a little hard to start with Fortran 77 and
say with a straight face that anything based on it is really designed).
The rest of the time was spent trying to keep the language from
being totally decimated by those who didn't like the results of
that "design".

Appealing to high-minded principles like market surveys and
software "design" is nice, but it will always come down to simply
what the members of X3J3 and WG5 want and/or think will be good for
the Fortran computing community.

Many surveys were taken in the late '70s and the result was used
to create the proposed Fortran 90 that you dislike so much, so I
wouldn't count on that to provide justification for your position.