Re: Releasing potentially confusing info to the CL community

[masinter.PARC@Xerox.COM]

Sigh. Present-day CL isn't CLtL either... since most present-day CL
implementations have bugs, have places where they differ from CLtL, have lots of
variations. I think that we can dissimenate information that X3J13 has
"endorsed" some changes in a letter ballot, and once the changes have been
endorsed, implementors are encouraged to go ahead and adopt those changes and
document them. 
I hear your concern to be that we want to reduce the amount of chaos in the CL
world, and encourage compatibility.  If so, I agree whole-heartedly. The issue
then comes down to whether releasing X3J13-adopted resolutions is likely to
increase or decrease people's understanding of where ambiguities in CLtL might
lie and what they can watch out for. I think the mere existance of the issue and
the Discussion in fact are very informative for most users, and will help them
understand areas that they have to watch out for. From that perspective, isn't
releasing the `approved' drafts doing everyone a service? We do talk about
current practice and whether this is a compatible change from 'current'
implementations, etc.