standards development process

[Lawrence V. Cipriani]

>> = Larry Cipriani
> = Doug Gwyn

>>As another writer said in response, there are many perfectly good
>>reasons why users don't get involved, cost is a big one, lack of
>>time another.

>Now, hold on.  If someone doesn't care enough to get involved, why
>should any attention be paid to their desires?

Now, hold on.  Don't put words in my keyboard, I'm only citing reasons
why they don't get involved.

I recognize that their desires probably won't get any attention
unless they get involved.  If they should be considered or not is
another matter.  If they aren't considered, and X3J11 has done what
it thinks is a fine job, but the users hate it what will happen?
ANSI-C will fail.  I don't think X3J11 wants that, neither do I.

And why does the converse necessarily hold.  If someone cares enough
to get involved why should their desires get any attention.  What
if their ideas are so bizarre that they should not participate.  How
does X3J11 tell someone to bug off?  Who decides what is bizarre?
Me! Really, I don't know.

Maybe X3J11 should just close up shop and let Dennis Ritchie take
over the job if he wants it.

>The ANSI C standardization effort has
>been publicized for years in columns in trade journals and elsewhere.
>It has hardly been a secret.  Do you think X3J11 should have bought
>space for ads in the comics pages of major newspapers in order to
>reach the rest of the C programmers?

Well the first thing I read in the newspaper are the comics! :-)

The world of C programmers is not made up only of computer jocks.
Not all the excellent C programmers are programmers by profession.
Many of them are scientists in other fields, they read their own
journals and magazines not computing/computer trade journals.
I do think X3J11 should have made a special effort to publicize
at the start, not now though.

Don't assume that the people that aren't involved don't have
worthwhile opinions, and don't assume that the people that
are involved do have worthwhile opinions.  It is the latter
group that concerns me the most.  By standardizing C I expect
that C will be standardized, I don't expect that a new language
will be invented which is what is happening.  At this point ANSI-C
is so different than the C I know that I wouldn't call it C, maybe
D, but not C.

-- 
Larry Cipriani, AT&T Network Systems and Ohio State University
Domain: lvc at tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Path: ...!cbosgd!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!lvc (weird but right)