Richard E Maine <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> On Nov 24, 2004, at 12:06 PM, Van Snyder wrote:
>
> > Of course, it was an extension. Being so, X3J3 never standardized it,
> > perhaps because of the resistance to standardizing existing practice.
>
> That hyperbole seems a bit, harsh. Close to the point of being flame
> bait.
It's too bad that with e-mail, the tongue in the cheek is invisible.
> In well over a decade on J3, I never once heard even a hint of a single
> member suggesting that being existing practice was a reason not to
> standardize something. I don't think it was because my ears were
> closed.
In nearly a decade on J3, I've heard plenty of proposals to "standardize
existing practice," which usually were followed by embarrassed silence
or snickers. I don't remember a single such proposal that was met with
"Wow, that's a great idea. Write a paper and we'll do it!" Nobody every
said "there's a rule against it" (and notice that I wrote "resistance,"
not "prohibition"), but it was almost never done.
> Sometimes the positive of existing practice has been strong enough to
> overcome substantial negatives. For example, to my knowledge, existing
> practice is the main reason that the bit intrinsics look quite like
> they do. I seriously doubt that they would have had quite the same
> syntax if it were not for the weight of existing practice.
It is my understanding that the MIL spec (1763?) carried far more weight
than "existing practice." In fact, "existing practice" was all over the
map. In particular, the Univac "existing practice" was far superior to
the MIL spec.
Can another example of "standardizing existing practice" since Fortran 77's
time be cited?
I guess there are a few. For example, many vendors found it easier simply
to allow list-directed I/O on internal files than to prevent it. But the
record is very sparse.
--
Van Snyder | What fraction of Americans believe
[log in to unmask] | Wrestling is real and NASA is fake?
Any alleged opinions are my own and have not been approved or disapproved
by JPL, CalTech, NASA, Sean O'Keefe, George Bush, the Pope, or anybody else.
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