Starting Up

[Dick Gabriel <RPG@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>]

Folks, as usual I've started up a mailing list for this
little subgroup. Luckily there are 5 of us so I recycled
this one:

	quinquevirate@sail.stanford.edu

with the archive file:

	big5.msg[com,lsp]

Some might not like the imperial tone of it all, but it's simply
too much hassle to add another mailing list to the ones SAIL knows
about already.

Here is what ISO decided, which has implications for us:

1. A draft of ANSI Common Lisp shall be delivered to the member
delegations so as to arrive by July 31.

2. The draft shall be accompanied by a document that outlines how
X3J13 evaluates that draft. This is a rationale statement and should
discuss those criteria we use for judging changes made to Common Lisp
and for judging the quality of the draft itself.

3. Optionally, we can supply a document that outlines our constructive
criticism of an existing Lisp and its specification as an international
standard.

In short, the German proposal was accepted and we are now in the process
of selecting drafts/languages to possibly standardize. There is currently
some question as to how many standards will be accepted, and I have
announced to WG16 that the US will decide whether to submit both Common
Lisp and Scheme or only Common Lisp based on our guess as to which of the
paths is most likely to result in an ISO Common Lisp.

During discussions with Chailloux, he remarked that all he really wanted
was a core language that was a subset of both Common Lisp and LeLisp.
This was news to me, and during further discussion it became clear that he
was technically confused about what a core language was and so explained
the funny set of changes he proposed to Common Lisp in the so-called AFNOR
plan. I think defining a core of Common Lisp according to his intentions
is relatively simple, since it is a core language rather than an
independently useful dialect.

I believe our charter includes the authority to make virtually any
editorial decision and some minor technical decisions. The latter should
be almost entirely of the form of deriving conclusions from decisions made
by X3J13, but I can imagine making decisions about things that were
overlooked. The largest decision I can imagine us making is a compromise
on the adjust-array question if that decision is consistent with existing
practice and all that has been decided by X3J13 already. (Actually, I
don't expect we will be able to make such a decision, but it is an
example. The key point is that I think we understood what was meant in
Kauai about the resolution that passed, but that resolution was
technically flawed. We could clean up that resolution.)

I plan to do some re-writing if that is acceptable. Right now I am willing
to rewrite the history section and the sections on conditions. I am also
willing to edit those other sections where my reviews outline a lot of
problems. I think we should do this by a checkout mechanism where KC is
the locking device.  That is, we should ask her to check out a file or
group of files, and when we are done, should be have the authority to
compare our version with the older one and to merge them as she sees fit.

				-rpg-