Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!pitt!willett!ForthNet
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: ANS FORTH TECHNICAL COMMITTEE
Message-ID: <2766.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 15 May 91 02:10:17 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.
Lines: 115

Category 10,  Topic 2
Message 155       Tue May 14, 1991
D.RUFFER [Dennis]            at 20:21 EDT
 
TO:  X3J14-watchers

FROM:  Elizabeth D. Rather, Chair

I'm writing to keep you up to date on the status of the developing standard.

In April, the TC voted 17-2 to submit our current draft as a dpANS. Exactly
what this means will be discussed shortly.  May 3-4 we met to consider the two
negative votes.  During this process, it became clear that additional "clean
up" is necessary; to that end we have scheduled another meeting for June 16-18
at the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY (immediately preceding the
Rochester Conference).  The time and place was chosen to make it as easy as
possible for those of us attending the Rochester Conference; if any of you who
are interested to join us, you'll be welcome.  Contact the Forth Institute or
me if you need further information.  At this time, primary attention is
focussed on making the document as clear and consistent as possible. For
example, much work is currently being done on organization, rationales,
additional material to help people understand differences between ANS Forth
and FORTH-83.  A copy of BASIS16 (resulting from the May meeting) will be
available about June 1.

At the end of the June meeting, we will vote in the TC on submitting the
results of that meeting to a letter ballot to approve release as a dpANS.  If
there are any negative votes on that letter ballot, they will be considered at
our next meeting beginning July 30 in Boulder, CO.  In any case, it is likely
that a dpANS will go out for public review in approximately September.

What does this mean?

Few standards are as publicly distributed during the development process as
this one.  In most cases, the first widespread public dissemination of a
proposed standard comes with the first 4-month public review.  The objective
is to get as broad a distribution as possible, and solicit as much public
comment as possible.  There will be a press release issued by ANSI, and every
effort will be made to tell people that it's available for review and how to
get it.

The document will be sold through an organization called Global Engineering
Documents.  They not only sell draft and final standards, they also maintain a
mailing list of people who buy copies.  The reason for this is that when
subsequent drafts (and ultimately the final ANS) are published, Global will
automatically contact everyone who bought the last one and notify them that a
new one is available.  We don't know how much it will be; documents of similar
size tend to run around $60 (I'm told people have complained about these
prices for years -- Global swears it's near their cost. Remember too that
you're paying to be on the official list).  The dpANS will *not* be available
from FORTH, Inc., on a BBS, or anywhere but Global.  The purpose of this is to
ensure that the proper tracking is done (people have been known to sue because
nobody told them that a subsequent draft standard had been released).

Comments can be positive or negative.  They should be directed to ANSI, who
will not only route them to us but will monitor our responses to all negative
votes to ensure they're "responsive".  The value of these comments, to the
commenter as well as to us, will be directly proportional to their
specificity.  At our May meeting we had a guest from X3 who told us that
someone wrote another TC, "your standard is so bad it's only fit for the
fireplace."  The TC responded, "we're glad you'll be warm this winter."  On
the other hand, if you call our attention to some critical technical flaw, a
misstatement in a rationale, or some important piece of information missing or
hard to find, for example, we will make every effort to fix it.  We'll also
carefully consider requests for missing features or to remove unpopular
features, although in these cases we'll be looking more for widespread demand
and are less likely to make a change in response to an individual request.

ANSI will follow up as to whether you've found our response acceptable (a
"resolved negative") or not (an "unresolved negative").  Unresolved negatives
follow the document around until it is a final ANS.  If ANSI thinks there are
too many of them, or that our responses are inadequate, they can hold up
further processing.

We (the TC) can make any changes at any time.  There's been some talk to the
effect that at some point it's "out of our hands."  This is never true until
the final publication of the ANS.  I've heard of TCs that stopped a standard
days before its final publication because they wanted to change something.  In
theory, changes get harder to make, because a 2/3 vote is required.  But in
fact, operating rules require "consensus," which means in practice that
virtually all actions are unanamous, and the rest have very small minorities
(under 3 votes).  Since our decisions have been reached by consensus,
frequently achieved only after many hours of debate over several meetings,
compromises, revisions, etc., we are unlikely to change them lightly.  We were
very open to public input throughout our process; we received lots, and it was
very influential.  At this stage, however, most issues have been dealt with at
length and to our technical satisfaction.

It is true that if any changes are made the document must repeat the cycle of
letter ballot, approval by X3, and public review.  After the first 4-mo.
review, subsequent review periods are 2-mos.

We're expecting the period during and after the public reviews to be active,
busy and important.  We're looking forward to getting some broad public
response to our work.  We also think it's very likely that there will be at
least one more review period, because of changes either in response to public
comments or internally generated.

When the happy day arrives when there really is an ANS Forth, its legal status
is as follows:  no one is required to build systems that conform to it, and no
one is required to write ANS Forth programs (at least, not required by ANSI. 
Your boss may...).  Just like previous Forth standards, it will influence
public usage precisely to the extent it is voluntarily adopted by implementors
and demanded by users.  **HOWEVER** -- UNLIKE FORTH-83, if someone claims to
have produced an ANS Forth system, and uses that labeling, but is in violation
of the standard, ANSI can force the labeling to
 be removed.  They would do so in response to public complaints -- they
haven't the capacity to "vet" all systems produced.

I hope this clarifies things for you.  We look forward to hearing from you.
-----
This message came from GEnie via willett.  You *cannot* reply to the author
using e-mail.  Please post a follow-up article, or use any instructions
the author may have included (USMail addresses, telephone #, etc.).
Report problems to: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us _or_ uunet!willett!dwp