Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: X3J11 meeting notes
Message-ID: <6872@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 18 Dec 87 23:05:49 GMT
References: <6829@brl-smoke.ARPA> <406@mn-at1.UUCP> <6852@brl-smoke.ARPA> <544@myrias.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 56
Keywords: ANSI C standard

In article <544@myrias.UUCP> cmt@myrias.UUCP (Chris Thomson) writes:
>Doug Gwyn writes:
>> There are many major changes between the first and second
>> (forthcoming) public review draft proposed standards.  There
>> actually is no "review cycle" currently in effect, but be advised
>> that this change was asked for several times during the first
>> formal public review, so if you like you can consider it made
>> "by popular demand".
>Pardon my English, but there sure as hell is a review cycle going on: ISO,
>and all its member nations (except apparently the USA) are reviewing the May
>15 Draft C submitted to ISO by ANSI for review.  Yes, I know that the latest
>draft is November 9, and that there was another one in the middle.  I am
>astonished to discover that there are "many major changes" in yet another
>forthcoming draft.  This is incredible.  Not only is the committee inventing
>instead of standardizing existing practice, but it is subverting the review
>and consensus process while it is at it.

If ISO really has gotten so "hot to trot" that they're trying to
proceed with international standardization of C before the work
of the American standardization effort is complete, then really
it's their own fault.  The X3J11 representative to ISO is trying
to ensure that the two efforts remain on the same track.  The
original ISO idea was that the ANS should be able to be adopted
as the ISO standard.  Indeed, many of the major changes introduced
into the proposed ANS, for example the locale, multi-byte, and
parentheses business, were in direct response to ISO requests
and/or demands.

For your information, X3J11 is OBLIGED to make "major changes" to
address deficiencies turned up by the first formal public review.
We received public comments about aliasing/optimization issues,
and at the last meeting finally got around to finding a proposed
solution for them.  X3J11 is allowed, indeed required, to invent
whenever it is necessary to remedy a clear deficiency.  We do try
to avoid invention under other circumstances.

Actually I don't think the parentheses and noalias stuff were
really "major changes", but that's beside the point.

>Perhaps the X3J11 committee should reach internal consensus before jerking
>around the entire world on a wild-goose-chase review of a document that
>is obsolete before it is even distributed.

I wish you would explain what the hell you are talking about.
If you're upset at reviewing ISO documents, then holler at them,
not at X3J11.  We're trying to do our assigned job the best we can.

There has been only one review of the X3J11 document, about a year
ago, and one more is planned to start near the beginning of
February.  Very little of the change between the only two
"published" X3J11 drafts can correctly be attributed to anything
other than addressing issues resulting from the first review.

P.S.  These are of course my own remarks; they do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of other X3J11 members, nor do they
constitute any sort of official committee position.