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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: BASIS Feedback
Message-ID: <1664.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 3 Sep 90 04:08:28 GMT
Organization: String, Scotch tape, and Paperclips.  (in Pgh, PA)
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Category 10,  Topic 35
Message 105       Fri Aug 31, 1990
D.RUFFER [Dennis]            at 13:32 EDT
 
From Elizabeth Rather, Chair, ANS X3J14 Technical Committee:

This is addressed to those who have been commenting extensively on our work on
UseNet and related boards.

We very much appreciate your interest.  I have circulated copies of many of
your comments in the TC.  I'd like to take the opportunity to try to clarify a
few things.

Regarding publication of BASIS in machine-readable form, please remember that
the primary purpose of BASIS is for the TC, to act as our current working text
against which we can make or evaluate proposals for changes.  We selected WORD
because it is an advanced word processor that runs with only moderate
conversion hassles on both Macs and PCs.  After each meeting we have roughly
40 proposals that may affect BASIS, many of which cause edits in many places.
The document editor, currently Leonard Zettel, of Ford Motor Co., has to take
care to do them all, in the right order, checking for side effects.  This can
take 60-80 hours.  The changes are then reviewed, and the 130+ pages printed
and sent to our members and subscribers (about 100 people in all).

We use special formatting extensively, to show changes from the last edition
(additions underlined, deletions struck-through), unofficial editors' boxes
(single-line outline boxes), official but non- normative rationale notes
(double-line boxes), etc.  It's hard to see how one could make these vital
distinctions (e.g. between deleted and inserted text) from a plain text file.

Last January Dennis and I posted about 10 pages of excerpts converted to plain
text.  The conversion process took over half a day.  My mind boggles at the
complexity of doing it to the whole document, ensuring its accuracy, and
leaving the result moderately readable.  Even though a number of people have
kindly volunteered to take on this massive task, we feel very uncomfortable
authorizing someone to do it, because of the possible misunderstandings that
may result if it's not done accurately.  Very few of the TC members (two or
three) get it in machine-readable form; we find the printed, bound version
easier to handle.  We are experimenting with RTF; if that works out we'll
offer an RTF version.

We will post BASIS13 on the BBSs when it is ready (early October, we hope)
with an advisory saying we do not authorize any conversions. The Forth Vendors
Group (which has acted as a publishing house for BASIS) is willing to ship Mac
or PC disks for $25 each to save you the trouble of downloading this massive
file.  Send your checks to FVG, 111 N. Sepulveda Blvd. #300, Manhattan Beach,
CA 90266. Remember, bound printed copies are still only $10.
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