standardization

["Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>]

Just a few comments on the SPARC proposal:

The timetable looks reasonable, I guess.  We ought to decide among
ourselves that we want to have (at least) decisions on all of the major
issues people have raised, a complete error system, and a cleanup of the
top-level-form/compiler issues by summer's end.  That would make it
possible for a revised version of Steele's book and/or a separate
specification document to be ready by the end of calendar 1986.  Object
oriented programming, windows, and iteration stuff doesn't have to be
settled in the first version of the standard, though it wouldn';t hurt
if they were.

I'm a bit worried about the lis tof potential participants leaking
before we've contacted all the people named, especially Ida and
Chailloux.  Would it hurt if we did not name these people specifically
right now?  Just say that we have begun discussions to identify foreign
participants.

Would this be stronger if we named the "major" companies involved?  It's
an impressive list.

I'm hoping that we can get by with less than four meetings in 1987.
Maybe we should say four, but try to get by with less -- the ANSI people
probably do not share our view of how much can get accomplished by
netmail, as compared to face-to-face meetings.  We've had more practice
at this than any other group in the world, I think.

Other than that, it looks good to me.

-- Scott