From psmith@mozart.convex.com Thu Mar 19 20:19:51 1992
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Date: Thu, 19 Mar 92 13:19:18 -0600
From: psmith@mozart.convex.com (Presley Smith)
Message-Id: <9203191919.AA00865@mozart.convex.com>
To: SC22WG5@dkuug.dk, walt@netcom.com
Subject: Re:  (SC22WG5.79) 1985
Cc: psmith@mozart.convex.com
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> Per Walt's mail, it seems that everyone was in agreement in 1985.  They
> should have put out a standard then.

>We tried.  We decided to stop changing the functionality and spend time
>writing a good document; new members that didn't like the content
>would not let us do that.

Obviously there was something either wrong in the design or the implementation.

In all of these messages, I find the need to BLAME something or someone.

Let's review this:

  1.  Loren said it was the procedures
  2.  Loren said the connection with X3 changed
  3.  Walt said it was those new members
  4.  It's those vendors
  5.  It's the "other side"

And the user community didn't know what was good for them...


Why I'm I sending all these messages now?   So that in X years when we
are ready for review of the next Fortran standard... we know up front
that the only thing we can blame is the committee which is us if we 
have all these problems again!!

Facts:

  1.  The procedures have not changed since Fortran 77 and probably
      are not going to change significantly in the next 5 years...
      Other committees, in general, are not having problems with them...

  2.  The connection to X3 is the same that it was in 1977.  We need 
      to understand how X3 works, what motivates then, what their 
      role is and work with them... not blame them...

  3.  There's going to be new members... every year.  You've got to learn
      how to make them a part of the committee and get them to come to
      consensus with the rest of the committee.  No one or group of people
      has the inside track and all the authority on a committee.  That's 
      what a committee is all about...

  4.  The vendors will still be there.  And they'll have the same concerns
      and issues beyond just the technical.  The committee must learn to 
      deal with them.  Other committees don't blame things on the vendors.

  5.  And, they'll always be the other side... the committee has got to
      learn how to get them to consensus...

And that user community and what's good for them...

The committee needs to do a better job of representing all factions of 
the user community... and get out of the business of trying to force them
to take what's good for them instead of what they want...  If you make it
appealing enough, they'll want it.  


X3J3 has got to clean up it's act!   

FYI.  Presley