Re: F2008 draft

On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 10:58:57 -0700, Joe Krahn wrote
(in article <CdQug.4$uk2.2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>):

I know that much of F2008 feature decisions are fairly fixed now. One
thing I am wondering is whether public ideas from the public comment
period have a chance at consideration even if it is a bit late for
suggesting the idea internally. In other words, is the public comment
period really useful for public comments, or is it generally too late to
be useful anyhow, other than giving some ideas for the future?

That's really hard to answer in that the matter is so subjective.

Has it ever happened that major changes have been made as a result of
public comment? Yes. That's easy to answer. Sometimes quite major
ones.

But, of course, making changes later is harder than making them
earlier. That's just a fact of life - nothing unique to the standard's
process. So naturally, the bar is going to be higher for late changes -
i.e. those from public comment. The bigger the change, the harder it is
going to be to sell. As to exactly how big and how hard the sales job,
well that depends on many subjective things - I can't answer that very
usefully.

The public review period is supposed to be for review. That isn't
supposed to be where it is decided what the committee was supposed to
be working on for the previous several years. Of course, the review can
say that they were working on the wrong things, but you have to expect
a much harder job in selling that.

Realize that if you are talking about proposing new features, then that
almost certainly means that another review period will be needed. After
all, other people might have comments on that new feature (possibly
even saying to take it back out. :-().

There is some room for judgement as to the line between a new feature
and a refinement of an existing one. I have seen people try to stretch
that line almost infinitely, claiming that absolutely everything they
proposed was an "integration matter" rather than a new feature, and
thus was appropriate even when new features were supposed to be no
longer in order. I'm talking people on the committee, but I'm not going
to name names - probably many people have been "guilty" of this at one
time or other. I can probably accept the "blame" for claiming that
stream I/O could "count" as part of C interop and thus should be
considered after new proposals for f2003 were allegedly closed. (Little
did I know at the time how many proposals were still going to be added
later; in retrospect, the stream I/O stuff doesn't seem like such a
late addition at all, but I was worried about it being rejected for
that reason when I proposed it.)

Depending how big the new feature is, adding it after public comment
period could end up delaying a standard by several years. That can be a
big hurdle to clear. Of course, some people might regard that outcome
as desirable. I'll not argue the point (and I might even have some
sympathy for it in regards to f2008). But whether you think it
desirable or not, it certainly makes for a harder sales job because
some will view that as a pretty high price.

But in the end, it comes down to one thing: can you sell the idea? That
matters much more than any set of "rules". If I knew an objective way
to answer all questions like that with certainty, I'd presumably be
world dictator. :-)

--
Richard Maine | Good judgment comes from
experience;
email: my first.last at org.domain| experience comes from bad judgment.
org: nasa, domain: gov | -- Mark Twain

.

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