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From: keld@freja.diku.dk (Keld J|rn Simonsen)
Newsgroups: comp.std.c
Subject: Re^2: New US Rep to ISO C
Message-ID: <4630@freja.diku.dk>
Date: 29 Apr 89 02:11:05 GMT
References: <6.UUL1.3#5077@aussie.UUCP> <4623@freja.diku.dk> <10142@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Organization: DIKU, U of Copenhagen, DK
Lines: 66

gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) writes:

>In article <4623@freja.diku.dk> keld@freja.diku.dk (Keld J|rn Simonsen) writes:

>The response
>document on p. 71 spells out X3J11's reasoning in considerable
>detail.  If there is a flaw in the logic, it should be pointed out.

Well, the document mentions an undescribed problem of the
empty subscript in declarations, when this problem was already
addressed in the paper. Also the document discussed the proposal's
position towards trigraphs, when this position was clear from the paper.

Other flaws: The X3J11 reasoning was not following the SC22 
resolutions (which ANSI also have voted for) of support to non-ASCII
character sets. These resolutions were meant to support readability
and writablity too, together with portability. ANSI had a
responsability to follow these ISO reslutions as they were
developing the ISO too, alongside doing the ANSI standard.

>>X3J11 not only has the responsibility of ANSI to do the standard,
>>but also have the technical responsibility of the ISO standard.

>Yes, that's true.  Technical responsibility means, among other
>things, judging the technical merits of proposals.  X3J11 has
>many times adopted changes to the Draft Standard that remedied
>perceived technical deficiencies.  I believe that X3J11 did not
>think that the digraph proposal was a suitable remedy for a
>perceived technical deficiency.  The official response document
>explained the Committee position on this issue.

Well, to me it seems like the technical merits of the proposal
has been judged by WG14, and WG14 seems to me to be a better body to
judge such international issues, as they are the ones having the
problems. So WG14 has said: this is a severe international problem
and the solution seems to solve the problem sufficiently, and we want
that in the ISO standard. Then ANSI just says no, it is not a problem.
And ANSI says that ignoring ISO priorities, including ISO plenary
resolutions - which was voted for by ANSI itself.

>>The technical problems with the proposal seems to be solvable,

>Very likely they are.  However, in order to work on fixing the
>problems in the proposal X3J11 would first have to be convinced
>of the necessity for making any change at all in this area.
>Clearly, they have not been convinced that there is a necessity.

Yes, clearly. But some almost official ANSI statements (Rex)
states that the reason for not letting this proposal thru was
strictly technical. That is not true. And thus ANSI seems not to
follow SC22 AG resolutions.

>>Another thing that X3J11 let down was to follow the guidelines
>>for syncronisation of ANSI/ISO standardisation, which has been
>>proposed by ANSI itself and to the best of my knowledge been
>>approved by ISO SC22. The guidelines would mean that the ANSI C
>>standard would be delayed till ISO had got a DP successfully
>>thru the international ballot.

>From what you have presented about this "synchronization", I
>gather that it is up to ANSI to decide whether to delay
>ratification of the proposed Standard until ISO etc.

True. I am refering to the SC22 document N555.

Disclaimer: The above express my opinion only.