Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: ANSI C Standard available for ftp?
Message-ID: <1990Jan2.163217.24888@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <994@ux.acss.umn.edu> <10241@zodiac.ADS.COM> <1989Dec31.011707.2155@utzoo.uucp> <0000007@ki4pv.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 90 16:32:17 GMT

In article <0000007@ki4pv.UUCP> tanner@cdis-1.UUCP (Dr. T. Andrews) writes:
>) It is worth noting that (a) becoming a committee member costs on the
>) order of $100 a year ...  The fees are not exorbitant for the amount
>) of paper you get.
>This is true, but misses the point.  The point is that ANSI is not
>so much providing a standards service as a purveyor of huge masses of
>expensive and often poorly-printed paper.

One has to distinguish between two different activities:  standards
development, and standards publication.  Published standards from ANSI
are generally printed very well, although they are admittedly a bit
pricey.  There is no published C standard (or Fortran 8X standard, etc.)
yet.  Standards development involves shipping really *huge* masses of
paper -- the actual draft standards are only a very small part of it --
and speed and economy are generally given priority over print quality.
This seems a reasonable tradeoff to me.  Please don't confuse drafts
with standards.

ANSI's primary function is to get good standards developed.  Publication
of the results is a side issue, albeit an important one, and prices are
high because somebody has to pay for the development overhead.
-- 
1972: Saturn V #15 flight-ready|     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1990: birds nesting in engines | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu