From hirchert@ncsa.uiuc.edu Thu Mar 19 20:33:30 1992 Received: from newton.ncsa.uiuc.edu by dkuug.dk via EUnet with SMTP (5.64+/8+bit/IDA-1.2.8) id AA27763; Thu, 19 Mar 92 20:33:30 +0100 Received: from pluto.ncsa.uiuc.edu by newton.ncsa.uiuc.edu with SMTP id AA03850 (5.65a/IDA-1.4.2 for SC22WG5@dkuug.dk); Thu, 19 Mar 92 13:33:12 -0600 Return-Path: Received: by pluto.ncsa.uiuc.edu (4.1/NCSA-4.1) id AA14977; Thu, 19 Mar 92 13:33:09 CST Message-Id: <9203191933.AA14977@pluto.ncsa.uiuc.edu> From: hirchert@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Kurt W. Hirchert) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1992 13:33:04 CST In-Reply-To: Presley Smith's message of Mar 19, 10:18 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.1 12/20/90) To: psmith@mozart.convex.com (Presley Smith), SC22WG5@dkuug.dk, walt@netcom.com Subject: Re: (SC22WG5.77) Re: From market surveys to "design" X-Charset: ASCII X-Char-Esc: 29 On Thu, Mar 19, 1992, at 10:18, Presley Smith wrote: >>Wrong. There was concensus prior to about 1985 when the membership >>starting changing rapidly. > >Obviously those who were in consensus were not knowledgable of the >procedures... ANSI wants a new version of a standard every 5 years... >or you have to re-affirm the old one again... > >I assume that there was consensus for what Fortran 8x should be by about the >time FORTRAN 77 was completed... Let's see... 1978 to 1985... that's 7 years. >X3J3 should have had the next version for Fortran completed, public review >done, and it ready for publication by 1985 according to the PROCEDURES. >-- End of except from Presley Smith (psmith@mozart.convex.com) I think Presley needs to reread the procedures, because the desciption above is almost entirely wrong. At the time the work on Fortran 90 was begun, the requirement was that within 5 years of the adoption of a standard, the committee responsible was required to reaffirm the standard, drop it, or _initiate_ a revision of that standard. There was no procedural time limit on when that revision was required to be completed. More recently, a requirement was introduced that within 10 years of the adoption of a standard, the standard be reaffirmed, dropped, or revised (i.e., revision completed and adopted). [This requirement was in addition to the 5 year requirement.] Initially, this requirement was waived for standards whose revisions were already in progress. Eventually, it was applied uniformly. [X3 then conducted a "stealth" public comment period on FORTRAN 77 and reaffirmed it in order for there to still be a FORTRAN standard until Fortran 90 was completed. Still later, X3 decided to call Fortran 90 a new standard rather than a revision of FORTRAN 77.] In other words, the fact that X3J3 had not completed a revision by 1985 may have been a disappointment to many of those involved and interested in the work, but it was entirely within the procedures. -- Kurt W. Hirchert hirchert@ncsa.uiuc.edu National Center for Supercomputing Applications