Third public review of X3J11 C

[Dan Schlitt]

In article <1988Aug27.231342.15447 at utzoo.uucp> henry at utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <225800058 at uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald at uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>>Chemists such as I, and other scientists don't read CACM. Most of
>>us don't read ANYTHING about computers, we just use them. BUT, we
>>are vitally interested in serious things like changing languages...
>
>Can you explain why you never read any of the journals that discuss
>something that is of vital interest to you?
>-- 
>Intel CPUs are not defective,  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
>they just act that way.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry at zoo.toronto.edu

As Chair of my physics department computer committee in a previous
life I put out a notice about the fortran8x standard and offered the
loan of the document published by SIGNUM.  ONE graduate student was
interested enough to look at the document and make a couple of
comments.  This was at a stage in the process where changes would be
fairly easy.  Several computational chemists were on the distribution
list for the notice.  NONE of these big time fortran users would take
the time to look at something which was going to have a big effect on
their future programing.  I'm glad I'm not there to hear their
yells of anguish when they finally have to live with a f87 compiler.
Please note that they didn't have to read any journals ... I did that
part for them and they still weren't interested.

I would not have put out a notice about C.  They would not have even
known about the language.

As system administrator for the science division computer facility I
try to notify the users of things like the standardization which
should be of interest.  That is one reason why I put effort into
keeping our news system in good shape.  But people don't read the news
groups and they don't react to the notices.

Now where did I put that 2x4?  (Nah, no one knows that joke about
getting the mule to move by whispering in its ear.)