standards development process

[Wayne A. Throop]

> dsill at NSWC-OAS.arpa (Dave Sill)
>> throopw at dg-rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
>>Don't companies that *use*
>>those compilers have a stake in the future portability of their code,
>>and thus have a very convincing motive to support employees on the
>>standards comittee?
> Yes, of course they have a motive.  They just don't have as strong a
> motive.

Well, I agree that many people perceive this motive as "weak", but I am
convinced that they are mistaken.

> Even the
> `support the standard for portability reasons' argument doesn't hold
> water: a standard will be created whether Company X supports a
> committee member or not.

Quite right.  But, the standard may not represent anything that Company
X can use.  For example, it may invalidate too much code that X has
already written in K&R C.  Or it may mandate a lanaguage too large to be
implemented on the equipment that X uses.  Or it may mandate BCD
arithmetic that X's compiler vendors can only supply in criplingly slow
form.  Or it may incorporate features (dare I say "noalias"?)  (I dare,
I dare) which make it harder to understand the standard library
interfaces and hence make writing standard-conforming code far too
difficult.

All of these things are, I submit, potentially threatening to the
profitibility and even survivability of Company X.  The fact that X's
CEO doesn't see it that way simply means to me that X's CEO is wrong.

>>(And by the way, many compiler-vendor representatives have much more
>> reason to be conservative about feeping creaturism than do compiler
>> users.  After all, they have to spend money to develop the feeping
>> creatures that folks come up with.)
> Yeah, right.  Just like automakers curse air-conditioning, FM radios,
> power steering, et cetera.  A product is the sum of its features.

But even auto vendors argue against expensive features that they think
(for whatever reason) that customers don't want to buy.  Air bags, for
example.  Emissions controls.  5-mph bumpers.  These features exist
(when they do) by the demand of users, not vendors.  And the fact that
US automakers can compete at all against import vendors primarily
because they can offer to leave features OFF to save money or customize.

But to clarify: I wasn't trying to say vendors will always take the KISS
side of things.  Just that they sometimes do, and often have motive to.
As I understand it, "noalias" in particular was not proposed by vendors,
but by users who wanted a feeping creature.  I may be wrong about that.

--
And you may ask yourself  "Am I right? ... Am I wrong?"
And you may say to yourself  "MY GOD! ... WHAT HAVE I DONE?"
                        --- "Once in a Lifetime", Talking Heads
-- 
Wayne Throop      <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw