Newsgroups: comp.std.c
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Identifier length?
Message-ID: <1989Mar18.235331.29018@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <627@maxim.ERBE.SE> <1989Mar16.171213.21210@utzoo.uucp> <6161@bsu-cs.UUCP> <1989Mar17.175939.1226@utzoo.uucp> <6212@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 18 Mar 89 23:53:31 GMT

In article <6212@bsu-cs.UUCP> dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
>I didn't even consider proposing something because I assumed I would
>have been laughed at for some obvious error on my part about which I
>should have known better.

I assure you, standards committees see lots of *really* dumb ideas, and
are seldom known to laugh at them.  (Sighs of resignation are rather
more common -- people who've never tried it have no idea how much paper
a standards committee has to wade through, and how many times they get
to see the same ideas.)  No idea which is at least superficially reasonable
will be ignored or laughed at.  But it is inherently impossible for a
standards committee to consider ideas that people don't feel strongly
enough about to submit.

>I sincerely doubt that I would have made a difference.  This was a
>political issue...

Unfortunately, standards are useless without acceptance by the Big Boys,
and this makes politics inevitable.  However, I think you are doing people
a serious injustice by implying that everyone who favored the six-character
restriction was politically motivated.  Not so.  Many people did indeed
feel exactly what the Rationale says:  the restriction is unpleasant but
it is a recognition of reality -- there is no practical way around it that
preserves real-world portability and usability today.
-- 
Welcome to Mars!  Your         |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
passport and visa, comrade?    | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu