re: Drafting Committee questions

[chapman@tle.enet.dec.com (02-Nov-1989 1522)]

>1. Has Kathy been reassigned at DEC so as to no longer be able to
>work on the draft? How much time can she spend on it?
I have been reassigned. That doesn't affect my access to resources
nor what I do in my "free" time (i.e. the time most of you have
used to work on X3J13 efforts). In order to expedite the completion
of the standard, I'd rather do the things that are difficult to 
explain to someone else. For example, I have a system of tracking
where pieces of the document came from, their evolution, and 
a huge backlog of past versions. Additionally, I have a system 
for tracking where the issues have been placed, so they can
be backed out or changed if necessary. These things aren't hard to recreate,
but there would be some time that someone would have to either
recreate them or learn my system. David Moon has indicated that
he's really interested in learning my file system organization ;-}.

If, however, you guys expect that either the standard will be
completely rewritten from where it is now, or that the process
of producing the standard will take more than a year, maybe 
showing someone else what I have now wouldn't be such a waste of time.
I had off-loaded the mechanics of debugging the TEX source, putting
the document together, proofreading for typos, mailing, and 
general maintenance to someone else, until that someone changed 
jobs. I do not have time for that stuff and I would like very much
to have help with it. Also, it is not clear how many meetings I
will be able to attend, but there will always be someone from
DEC there.

>2. How does the draft sent to X3J13 differ from that sent to WG16?
There were minor changes resulting from comments I received after
the document had been sent to WG16 and from reviewing I had done.
Also, there were some spelling changes...

>3. What percentage of the cleanups and like material passed has been
>incorporated in the current draft?
99%. The compiler issues haven't been completely incorporated in the
function description sections. The recently-written issues, of course,
haven't been included. The fact that the issues have been included, 
though, doesn't mean that I think they have been reviewed adequately.
In fact I think that if we are to channel our efforts, reviewing
the inclusion of the issues and proliferating whatever changes have
been made throughout the standard (I'm thinking of subtle changes)
should be a top priority.

>4. Which parts are most nearly complete?
The defined name descriptions that haven't been sent to ISO have gone through
at least 3 generations. The CLOS defined names should be the most complete,
the condition system defined names should be the least complete.
There are about 50 of each of those sets of defined names, there are
722 of the others (from CLtL). There are also additional defined names
resulting from issues. Those seem to be fairly good, but need more
reviewing. 
So in general, it seems that another round of reviewing for around
900 defined name descriptions is in order. 

>5. What is a realistic estimate for the availability of a complete draft?
Depends on how much people want to do. We could continue debating for
a very long time. I think if we set priorities as follows, we should
be able to get the job done within 6 months, if we can get the
commitment of the right people to do the work:
1. make the glossary correct, clear, and complete. To get this done
in a reasonable amount of time will require that we don't get off on
meta-issues. I think 2 people should do the glossary (2 VERY GOOD people)
and we should declare it done for this version of the standard. Getting
it done should take a max of 1 month.

2. make sure the issues have been incorporated and proliferated
correctly. The issues should be divided by topic and given to 
as many people as there are topics (one person per topic). This 
job should take 1 month.

3. review the remaining defined name descriptions. The descriptions
should be divided by topic (CLtL divisions have been used in the
past) and there should be one topic given to each reviewer. 
This job should take 1 month.

4. collect, review and enter comments. This job should be done
by 2 people and should take 2-3 months.

There should be no intersection between the reviewers in #'s 1 and 2
and the reviewers in #3. As you can see, we'll need each person
on the committee to make this work. More realistically, there
will be intersection all over the place, but I don't think
a small number of people will be able to do this job the right
way. On the other hand, poor reviewers do poor reviews. 

>6. Who will be working on the draft from now on?
?


kathy