Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wasatch!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!sun!fatcity!khb
From: khb@fatcity.Sun.COM (Keith Bierman Sun Tactical Engineering)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: so much for X3J3
Keywords: WG5, standard, wasted everybody's time
Message-ID: <97753@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 6 Apr 89 09:57:49 GMT
References: <24032@beta.lanl.gov>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Reply-To: khb@sun.UUCP (Keith Bierman Sun Tactical Engineering)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 48

In article <24032@beta.lanl.gov> dd@beta.lanl.gov (Dan Davison) writes:
>In the March 20 Digital News there is an article on pg.8 about the new
>standard and relations with WG5.  
>
>" [X3J3 and WG5]...have agreed on content for a draft proposal, and 
>members of each	are voting on documents that are essentially the same..."
>
>"However, several members of the ANSI X3J3 committee said that their
>group had capitulated to pressure from its parent committee,
>ANSI X3, to stay in line with the ISO group, and that the new
>draft proposal essentially ignores the  public comments that
>killed the last draft proposal".

It is true that some members don't like the WG5 pressure. It must be
remembered that x3j3 was given the charter to develop the text for ISO
in addition to ANSI and that the committee accepted that mandate.

Furthermore the public comment has NOT been ignored. Every letter was
read. Every proposal no matter how ill-informed was dealt with by the
appropriate subcommittee. Offical responses are still being crafted.

>
>If I feel cheated from having spent time reading the draft standard and
>writing comments, what about all the folks who put in so much time and
>effort?

You shouldn't feel cheated. The committee may not end up accepting
your proposed changes, but they were considered.
>
>Whose standard is this anyway?

Ours (the folks who rely on fortran). There is much to be gained by
having a single fortran. ISO recognized this, and accepted the ANSI
document in 1978. This time around the European community spent a huge
amount of effort (due to rules differences, they were able to better
educate their user community) and crafted a set of well thought out
proposals. They accepted the american committee's work for about 90%
of the language, and felt that the 10% or so that they felt strongly
about should go their way. There are many who think that this is not
unreasonable....which is why their propsals were accepted by a
majority of the voting memembers in attendance in the Palo Alto meeting.

Things are looking good for acceptance of the standard. 



Keith H. Bierman
It's Not My Fault ---- I Voted for Bill & Opus