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From: mikeb@inset.UUCP (Mike Banahan)
Newsgroups: net.news.group,net.internat
Subject: Re: I hate to say I told you so...
Message-ID: <824@inset.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 13-Jan-86 06:36:48 EST
Article-I.D.: inset.824
Posted: Mon Jan 13 06:36:48 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 17-Jan-86 00:54:01 EST
References: <2390@gatech.CSNET> <151@decvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: mikeb@inset.UUCP (Mike Banahan)
Organization: The Instruction Set Ltd., London, UK.
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Keywords: net.internat
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Actually, those of us who are really working on the problem didn't take
any holiday at all ove Christmas -- I was reading several proposals
on this very subject as the clock struck midnight on Christmas eve.
But I'm not looking for sympathy - I get paid for that stuff.

What is actually happening is that the ``real'' work, i.e. research
and development, to the tune of some millions of dollars/pounds per
year (substitute your own conversion factors) is being done by some
hard-nosed commercial outfits who seek to make money from it. The work
goes in phases - design, test, implement, redesign and so on;
it is the classical iterative engineering design and test phase.

It is unrealistic to expect that the wider world is going to be invited
to participate in the nitty-gritty of this work. What can be done in
this newsgroup and the associated committee meetings is to provide

	1) a general forum for debate (useful)

	2) a way in which the community can help take part in the
	   consultative activity. One of my responsibilities is to
	   try to get information out of the commercial setups about
	   what they are doing and to spread the word. In that way,
	   Joe Public may just get to have some say in what is going on.
	   The poor turkey certainly wouldn't get a look-in otherwise.

Interest in (1)  has quitened a bit recently.

Item (2) has been quiet because the commercial group that I talk to most,
X/OPEN, has been going through one of the design proposal stages. They
will be holding a private meeting in the last week of January to discuss
the work. I am lucky enough to have been invited to the meeting.

I hope to get permission to publish some of the proposals which they are making,
both here on the net and elsewhere. Comments from the net readership will be
very welcome; I suspect (having read the briefing papers) that some controversy
may be generated. Wait till you see the proposals for generic Regular
Expressions!

I expect that the discussion stimulated by the commercial efforts will
always be cyclic in nature.
-- 
Mike Banahan, Technical Director, The Instruction Set Ltd.
mcvax!ukc!inset!mikeb