Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!gatech!ncar!ames!pasteur!agate!violet.berkeley.edu!lagache
From: lagache@violet.berkeley.edu (Edouard Lagache)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
Subject: Re: My views on developing a PROLOG standard (long but fun!)
Keywords: Typos, world standards.
Message-ID: <8070@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 27 Mar 88 23:22:19 GMT
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: lagache@violet.berkeley.edu (Edouard Lagache)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 36

In article <795@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
}>In article <7847@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, lagache@violet.berkeley.edu (Edouard Lagache) writes:
}>>           The matter of greatest concern for me is the question of whose
}>>      standard will be the standard?  The BSI group is a British standard;
}>>      Now I hear that the French are working on their own standard (the AFNOR
}>>      group).  All this is fine and good except that in all likelihood the
}>>      resulting standards will have about as much similarity with each other
}>>      as the French and English (natural) languages do (never mind the fact
}>>      that neither standard will have have much to do with existing practice)
}>
}>Wrong.  Roger Scowen of NPL get the thing started; since the NPL is in
}>England he naturally got the thing started as a BSI project.  AFNOR are
}>not developing a rival standard;  they have been collaborating with the
}>BSI group for a long time now, and the Formal Specification is French work.
}>(While many people will find it the most confusING part of the BSI material,
}>it is arguably the least confusED.)  The whole thing has now become, I hear,
}>an ISO "work item", and the more recent BSI documents bear ISO reference
}>numbers.
}>
	Thank God!  Sorry if my original note was somewhat pessimistic, but
	that is how the world is making me feel these days.

}>>           The last thing I would really like to see is some vast
}>>      improvement in the standard user interface tools.  Even if not all
}>>      hardware can support it, I would like to see some standard way to
}>>      access windows, i/o devices (i.e. mice), and or forth.
						     ^^^^^^^^
						     Sorry folks, this is
						     a typo!  It should
						     read "so forth"

	Who says it is such a good idea to keep students up late at
	night!
}
}						Edouard Lagache
}						lagache@violet.berkeley.edu