Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ll-xn!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!microsoft!bobal
From: bobal@microsoft.UUCP (Bob Allison)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: FORTRAN 8x Public Comment Summary
Message-ID: <1380@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 12 Apr 88 01:04:03 GMT
References: <68000012@convex> <50500042@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Reply-To: bobal@microsoft, or {sun,uunet}!microsoft!bobal
Organization: Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA
Lines: 43

In article <50500042@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> hirchert@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>A few preliminary comments on the summary of the Fortran 8x public comment:
>1. How did you get this info so fast?  I'm a member of X3J3, and I've only
>   received about 3/4 of them.
X3 members got them before we did: I assume he got his from them.  

>2. How many of those negative letters were form letters?  In the letters
>   received before the last X3J3 meeting (about 90), more than half of the
>   negative comments (about 35) were form letters.
Well, we're going to have this debate in the committee, but I'm willing
to debate it in public too.  First off, I challenge you to produce the
form letters.  If you include the ones which apparently were organized by
Convex, I doubt you would include #115, by Brian J. Christianson, 
which has as a quote "Are these folks really in the ball
game here or have they spent too much time programming in COBOL?"
(In other words, while a lot of letters have the same general form, but
many of them have very individual comments)  And besides, I do not believe
many of the other letters which were signed by more than one person 
(and therefore a "form letter") were illegitimate in any way.  We
can argue whether the people who signed the letters were given slanted
presentations of the standard, but that is a whole new ball game.

>3. Some of the letters characterized as negative are from people I know to be
>   generally in favor of 8x (although they have specific concerns about the
>   current draft).
I agree.  I'm trying to compile a list of specific examples, which I 
will send to Presley Smith along with a request to re-publish.  How
about you? In the mean time, let's avoid generalizations.  

>4. What did CBEMA do with my 42 page comment?  I wonder how many others are
>   unaccounted for?
>
From what I've heard it is a real mess.  There are 396 which made it
before the deadline, but Jeanne Adams (the chairperson of X3J3) has
about a hundred more which we should consider as well.  Potentially,
yours could be one of those hundred.

>Kurt W. Hirchert     National Center for Supercomputing Applications
(who, by the way, is hosting the next meeting.  It will be at the
University of Illinois, from May 9 to May 13, somewhere on campus.
I'm sure observers are welcome as long as they don't flood the place).

Bob Allison