Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!microsoft!jimad
From: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK)
Newsgroups: comp.std.c++
Subject: Re: standards participation
Message-ID: <56728@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 20 Aug 90 16:14:34 GMT
References: <56159@microsoft.UUCP| <1028@lupine.NCD.COM> <56632@microsoft.UUCP> <1990Aug17.165749.3270@zoo.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 34

In article <1990Aug17.165749.3270@zoo.toronto.edu| henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
|In article <56632@microsoft.UUCP> jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK) writes:
|>...  I'd like to have comp.std.c++ be the forum
|>for "public input" on the c++ standard.  This is the spirit in which
|>I am writing to comp.std.c++
|
|There is a way to get public input into the standard, but it is *not* to
|post something here.  It is to write it down, on paper, and send it to
|X3J16.  Yes, standards committees read proposals from Joe Random User.
|Yes, they pay attention.  Yes, they even sometimes adopt them.  
....
|It is very likely that members of X3J16 read this newsgroup, but they will
|probably consider it to be informal discussion, not a source of formal
|proposals.  Translation, they can ignore anything they disagree with.
|
|If you are seriously concerned, even about a single issue, it is not that
|difficult or expensive to join a standards committee.  ANSI committees
|are *required* to be open to all.  They tend to consist mostly of compiler
|implementors, since it is very much in their interests to put substantial
|money and manpower into participation, but anybody can join.  Best is to
|actually attend meetings, but you can join as an "observer" and simply
|get all the paperwork.  There will typically be a fee, perhaps $100/yr,
|to cover reproduction and mailing costs.  If you want to actually do
|justice to belonging, there will also be a *lot* of time involved, because
|at regular intervals the postman delivers several pounds of paper for you
|to read and comment on.  People who haven't tried it have no concept of
|how tedious this is.

Okay, in the odd chance there are any real-world C++ users [as opposed to
compiler writers :-] out there willing to subject themselves to a standard-
ization effort, does anyone have information on how real people get involved 
with the standardization effort?  Contact addresses?  ACM or IEEE magazine? etc?

....the rest of us will just continue our howling into the void....