Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!samsung!usc!apple!longway!std-unix From: std-unix@longway.TIC.COM (Moderator, John S. Quarterman) Newsgroups: comp.std.unix Subject: Re: Some questions about POSIX headers Message-ID: <435@longway.TIC.COM> Date: 21 Nov 89 18:55:52 GMT References: <4508@ast.cs.vu.nl> <6622@portia.Stanford.EDU> <6649@portia.Stanford.EDU> <428@longway.TIC.COM> <431@longway.TIC.COM> <432@longway.TIC.COM> <434@longway.TIC.COM> Reply-To: Andy Tanenbaum Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam Lines: 28 Approved: jsq@longway.tic.com (Moderator, John S. Quarterman) From: Andy Tanenbaum In article <434@longway.TIC.COM> karish@forel.stanford.edu (Chuck Karish) writes: >If the >reader needs to have special knowledge or to note every subtle nuance >of meaning in order to understand a standard, the standard is >inadequate. I second this 1000%. There was a comment earlier in this group to the effect "Everybody in the committee knows what it means." That is exactly the point. A standard should be written so that an outsider who was not on the committee but who is skilled in the field can pick it up and understand it. Now by-and-large, P1003.1 isn't so bad, but I am holding my breath about the ISO version. Last year I went through the ISO OSI standards very carefully. In many cases after 3 or 4 detailed readings I didn't have the slightest idea of what they were talking about (e.g. the OSI session standard has an endless amount of mumbo jumbo about how to start and end an activity, but nary a word on what an activity might be). I eventually figured out how to determine what the standard is all about-- you call up the convenor on the phone and ask him. As an outsider who is trying to implement P1003.1 (and who has not even looked at the UNIX source code), I am an interesting case in point. No doubt I'll have some questions in the course of time. Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl) Volume-Number: Volume 17, Number 63