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From: jlg@cochiti.lanl.gov (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Throwing stones at standard committee (was Cheating on the types)
Message-ID: <18835@lanl.gov>
Date: 22 Mar 91 23:40:05 GMT
References: <1991Mar20.195732.15376@appmag.com> <10146@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> <10208@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> <8517@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <1991Mar22.202121.26272@jato.jpl.nasa.gov>
Sender: news@lanl.gov
Reply-To: jlg@cochiti.lanl.gov (Jim Giles)
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 74

In article <1991Mar22.202121.26272@jato.jpl.nasa.gov>,
vsnyder@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Van Snyder) writes:
|> [...]
|> It's easy to sit back and throw stones.  Have you sent ONE concrete proposal
|> to X3J3? [...]

I don't know about Herman Rubin, but I have.

|> [...]   Have you attended a meeting? [...]

Yes.

|> [...]                       Have you corresponded with ANY member
|> on a topic relating to the language standard? [...]

Yes.

|> [...]                             Have you asked your employer /
|> sponsor to foot the bill for you to join the committee?

No.  Our representative on the committee sits just down the hall from
me.  Although we have differences, I was satisfied that he generally
represented my interests with regard to Fortran.  Even if I did not,
no organization is allowed more than one full member on the committee.

|> [...]
|> If you don't like something about the way the language is designed, propose
|> an alternative, don't insult the people who worked hard to get what we have.
|>
|> --
|> vsnyder@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov
|> ames!elroy!jato!vsnyder
|> vsnyder@jato.uucp

I have the third public review letters here in front of me.  The letter
from W. Van Snyder of the Nasa Jet Propulsion Laboratory was among the
most critical of them.  While I don't agree with all that he said
(or left unsaid), I think the following quote reflects my own experience
with the committee better than anything I could have said myself:

   "But, some comments appear not to have been considered, some appear
   to have been considered only in part, and the responses to some
   suggest that the examining subcommittee either didn't understand
   what I advocated, or chose not to (I think that's called _stonewalling_).

Or, perhaps a shorter comment later on says the same thing more
succinctly:

   "Please keep to the point of our proposals, instead of setting up
   easily-kicked-down straw men."

I didn't send in a letter on the third public review since I was
certain that it would be ignored or misinterpreted like my first
two public review comments were.  On the second public review, for
example, I carefully listed several reasons that I opposed the
introduction of POINTERs in the proposal.  One of the responses
I got back was:

   "You are correct that allocatable arrays are not needed because the
   pointer facility provides equivalent functionality.  [...] "

This, of course, was total garbage.  I recommended _keeping_ the
allocatable arrays and _dropping_ pointers - not the other way
around!  No native English speaker could possibly have interpreted
my comments as a recommendation to drop allocatable arrays as
redundant.

So, before reprimanding people for complaining about the proposed
standard, remember that our experience with the committee may have
been as unacceptable as yours (or more so).  Complaining in a public
forum is the only option left to those of us whose comments were
ignored or misrepresented by the committee in the past.

J. Giles