[Info-vax] General Availability of 9.2 for x86-64

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 7/19/22 17:54, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 7/19/2022 3:03 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> On 7/19/22 08:37, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>> I wonder if we've reached the point where some standards bodies keep
>>> adding features for their own benefit (ie: to keep them in a job),
>>> instead of for the benefit of the software developers they claim to
>>> be working on behalf of ?
>>
>> A recent discussion over in the COBOL group had me thinking of this
>> again.  His point was that something that should have been clearly
>> spelled out in the standard doesn't appear to be.  I think it is but
>> not where he was looking.  I would have confirmed this but I am
>> unwilling to pay ISO hundreds of dollars just to read a standard.
>>
>  > So this brings us to just what the purpose of standards are.  One would
>  > think that the desire would be to make them as widespread as possible so
>  > that people would actually use them, but no, we hide them and charge
>  > ridiculous amounts of money just to read them (and ISO is not the only
>  > one who does that!!)
> 
> I believe the programming language standards are really mostly
> targeted for the compiler writers.
> 
> Not for the usenet language lawyers.
> 
> But I agree it would be nice if they were available.
> 
> I believe that ECMA, W3C, OASIS, JCP etc. allows free downloads.
> 
>> And what should be in a standard?  Wouldn't you think the standards
>> bodies would talk to the practitioners before creating a standard to
>> get an idea what they need and want in a language?  But, no, they
>> write their standards in vacuums putting in things the practitioners
>> didn't ask for and certainly don't want.  And then get upset when the
>> practitioners refuse to use the crap they never wanted.  So then, why
>> do they put it in the standard?
>>
>> And then you have all the stuff the practitioners wanted that the
>> standards bodies refused to consider.  The result is vendor extensions
>> with each vendor doing the same task differently instead of all of them
>> doing the same way.
>>
>> I really think it is time to drop the concept of academia generating
>> standards and create a standards body concept made up of and run by
>> the practitioners of the IT world.  I think it would get corporate
>> support because they stand to profit from it in the long run.
> 
> That is not how reality is.
> 
> It is not academia that are creating the standards.
> 
> The standards workgroups are filled with compiler vendor
> people and some people from big companies using the compilers.
> Very few people from universities.

If not academia, then who's bright idea was it to put OO in COBOL
when no one using it wanted it and the user community soundly rejected
it.

bill