From owner-sc22wg5@open-std.org Wed Aug 3 19:08:47 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: sc22wg5-domo2 Delivered-To: sc22wg5-domo2@open-std.org Received: by open-std.org (Postfix, from userid 521) id 01AB1152DC; Wed, 3 Aug 2005 19:08:46 +0200 (CET DST) X-Original-To: sc22wg5@open-std.org Delivered-To: sc22wg5@open-std.org Received: from dkuug.dk (ptah.dkuug.dk [195.215.30.66]) by open-std.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F07D013ACD for ; Wed, 3 Aug 2005 19:08:43 +0200 (CET DST) Received: from oin.rl.ac.uk (oin.rl.ac.uk [130.246.135.200]) by dkuug.dk (8.12.10/8.9.2) with ESMTP id j73H7vwE015673 for ; Wed, 3 Aug 2005 19:07:59 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from j.k.reid@rl.ac.uk) X-RAL-MFrom: X-RAL-Connect: Received: from jkr.cse.rl.ac.uk (jkr.cse.rl.ac.uk [130.246.9.202]) by oin.rl.ac.uk (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id j73GISCG000419 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Wed, 3 Aug 2005 17:18:29 +0100 Received: from rl.ac.uk (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by jkr.cse.rl.ac.uk (8.12.10/8.12.8) with ESMTP id j73GKVMb029892; Wed, 3 Aug 2005 17:20:31 +0100 Message-ID: <42F0EECF.7040705@rl.ac.uk> Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 17:20:31 +0100 From: John Reid Reply-To: j.k.reid@rl.ac.uk Organization: Rutherford Appleton Laboratory User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.4.3) Gecko/20041005 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: WG5 Subject: Re: (j3.2005) (SC22WG5.3306) Re: 05-188 - BITS version of old typeless proposal References: <20050801152342.6944311318@open-std.org> In-Reply-To: <20050801152342.6944311318@open-std.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-CCLRC-SPAM-report: -4.9 : BAYES_00 X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.39 X-Spam-Score: 0 () Sender: owner-sc22wg5@open-std.org Precedence: bulk Whitlock, Stan wrote: > I know it's August and a lot of people are on vacation but I'd like some > input from the people who attended the Delft WG5/J3 meeting about what > they expected the TYPELESS requirement J3-047 to turn into. The WG5 > minutes N1631, the J3 minutes 05-190, and the WG5 resolutions N1630 are > not very detailed in this regard. It would seem that straw votes on the > TYPELESS proposal J3-047 favored instead "variable sized bit strings" > and the proposal was to be renamed BITS. Future paper 05-188 which has > just appeared was to replace the proposal in J3-047. That's all the > information available to those of us who did not attend the meeting. > > > > So what is the new requirement? Can it be stated without showing new > syntax and arguing about optimization efficiencies of non-existent > implementations? There are plenty of other very hard tasks to work on > for Fortran 2008 without undertaking some undefined task that we'll just > continue to argue about and vote in and out. So we should either get > the requirement settled or we should do no more work on it until we {and > that's the "WG5 who sets the massive list of wonderful requirements for > the next standard" we} get it nailed down. > > Stan, WG5 very nearly put BITS in the 'Not to be pursued' category. We put items in the 'Must be implemented' or 'Not to be pursued' categories when the straw vote made it clear that this was the will of WG5 (usually, perhaps always, more votes than the rest, including undecideds). For BITS, the votes were 4-5-8-1 and 4-6-6-0 (I find that the second straw vote is in 05-184 but not in the WG5 documents). The argument was made that the advocates of a proposal not put in either of these definite categories should be permitted to work further further on it and be given a chance of acceptance in Feb. I think J3 needs to give priority to the 'Must be implemented' items in order to meet our schedule. Resolution D6 in N1630 encourages work on other items 'if time permits'. As for the straw vote on 'variable sized bit strings', I think this should be treated just like any J3 straw vote in the early stages of the deveopment of a proposal - useful guidance, but not binding and subject to change as people get to understand the issues better. I hope this helps, John.