Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!uunet!longway!std-unix From: std-unix@longway.TIC.COM (Moderator, John S. Quarterman) Newsgroups: comp.std.unix Subject: Standards Update, Part 1: Overview Message-ID: <333@longway.TIC.COM> Date: 22 Apr 89 19:25:17 GMT Reply-To: std-unix@uunet.uu.net Lines: 73 Approved: jsq@longway.tic.com (Moderator, John S. Quarterman) An update on UNIX|= Standards Activities - Part 1 Overview February 20, 1989 Shane P. McCarron, NAPS International This marks the fifth in a series of articles about the Unix Standards community. Before we get too far here, I would like to apologize for the lateness of this particular report. While it should have been out in mid-February, it is now late March and I am just completing the editing. Hopefully this type of delay will not be seen again. THe big news this quarter is that the ANSI C Standard X3.159-1989 has been approved by the X3 Secretariat. This means that the X3 people are satisfied with the technical merit of the standard, as well as with the procedures that were followed in completing it. Once it has been formally reviewed by ANSI, we will have an American National standard for the C language. This is good and bad. The C Language standard has a few glaring flaw that make it all but impossible to write a truly portable application. I am certain that it is possible to write a mostly portable application with little difficulty, but that wasn't really the goal of the standard. More on this later. This quarter we have reports from a number of committees. They are in various states of repair, with varying levels of detail. I have received little feedback from you about how much detail should be included in the reports. Consequently, it has been left up to the Usenix Watchdog Committee contacts to generate as much or as little material as they see fit. If you have comments on this, please send them to me or directly to the contact person whose report you are commenting on. As always, we are looking for a few good people to represent us in standards committees. If you would like to work with us in trying to bring the world of standards to light, please contact the Standards Watchdog Committee's Volunteer Coordinator, Marc Teitelbaum . __________ |= UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T in the U.S. and other countries. - 2 - Please look to the subsequent postings in this series for all of the reports. If you have any comments or suggestions, please contact me at: Shane P. McCarron NAPS International 117 Mackubin St. Suite 6 St. Paul, MN 55102 +1 (612) 224-9239 ahby@bungia.mn.org uunet!bungia.mn.org!ahby Publisher's note: Shane has moved and taken a new job. We are currently looking for a new report editor. Interested applicants please send electronic mail to jsq@usenix.org or talk to Marc Teitelbaum at the IEEE 1003 meeting in Minneapolis, 24-28 April. -John S. Quarterman Volume-Number: Volume 16, Number 31