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From: koopman@a.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Philip Koopman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: How will others see ANS Forth?
Message-ID: <9913@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 16 Jul 90 13:39:51 GMT
References: <9912@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 29

>   Phil - IF you do go to that much trouble, we will be happy to make
>   the  GEnie Forth Real-Time Conference facility available for this 
>   discussion. ... I would also recommend distribution to the X3J14
>   committee members.
 
Thanks for your kind offer.  I would probably structure the "experiment"
in two stages.  The first stage would be simply to record the observations
of the external reviewer.  This would actually be the key result,
and should be disseminated in an appropriate manner.
The second stage would be to pick selected external reviewers for
further discussion (perhaps on a Real-Time Conference) to elucidate
problem areas.
 
My question about whether the X3J14 committee as a whole would listen is: 
would a bona fide CS expert/language designer giving constructive 
criticism result in corrective changes to the standard, or just be
dismissed with a comment such as "he just doesn't understand?"
How about an application engineer who actually has to use it?
It probably is not worth his time or mine unless there is enough 
interest that we actually get requests to do this.  Also, if we can't
dig up at least 3-5 reviewers, there clearly is not enough interest
in the community to bother with this (and our sample will be too
small to be convincing).

  Phil Koopman                koopman@greyhound.ece.cmu.edu   Arpanet
  2525A Wexford Run Rd.
  Wexford, PA  15090
Senior scientist at Harris Semiconductor, and adjunct professor at CMU.
I don't speak for them, and they don't speak for me.