Re: Process is no substitute for understanding
Manoj Srivastava writes ("Re: Process is no substitute for understanding"):
> Why on earth would [the C9X committee] refer to the GCC manual,
> of all things? Gcc is a mere implementation, trying to match the
> standard, and perhaps buggy.
C9X standardises a number of things that people have invented
extensions for. Notably, they have standardised many of the
extensions also available in GCC.
The C9X group's remit was to standardise existing practice, but they
didn't think it important (or it didn't occur to them) to look to see
what the most popular C compiler had done.
The result is that in very many cases the C9X spec has an extension
with the same purpose and similar or identical semantics to GCC, but
with different syntax.
> (This question calls into question your understanding of the
> standards process, and the significance of standards documents
> themselves).
Before you say that something calls someone's understanding into
question you should perhaps check your facts.
> I have little trust on the competence of the tech ctte to
> actually resolve things, and even in the competence of all members. I
> certainly do not trust them as much as this list, which has, for the
> most part, been quite competent.
Then you should try to get the relevant members of the technical
committee replaced, or change the constitution.
> We do have problems -- but the solution does not involve
> throwing out the baby with the bath water
The bath water is the tedious policy process.
I shan't reply to the rest of the points in your message because think
that we're starting to repeat ourselves.
Also, some of your comments seem aimed at defending or attacking
individual people. I'm not complaining here about the mistakes of
individual people; I'm using examples of failures of the policy
process to do the right thing as arguments to say that it should be
changed. I'm not trying to beat up on people, and I hope you're not
either.
So, I shan't answer your those of your comments which seem to comment
on individual people. That's not the issue here.
Ian.
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