(j3.2006) (SC22WG5.3447) Jeanne Adams

[Miles Ellis]

I was greatly saddened to receive the news of Jeanne Adams' death.

I first met Jeanne in 1986 when I joined X3J3 (as it then was) and  
got to know her well over the next 15 years before I withdrew from  
active Fortran standardisation at the same time as I resigned from  
the Convenorship of WG5.  Throughout that period it was always a joy  
to work with Jeanne - even if we did not always see eye-to-eye!

She will be best remembered, of course, as chairman of J3 during the  
often fractious development of F90 - a task which she carried out  
with good humour, albeit mixed occasionally with considerable  
frustration.  Trying to control around 50 people, often with strongly  
held, yet diametrically opposing, views, was not easy and the fact  
that we all remained on good terms with each other is a considerable  
tribute to the way in which she organised things.  She also made us  
work hard!  In those days meetings started at 8 and closed at 6 with  
45 minutes for lunch (if we were lucky! ) and sometimes a further  
session after dinner.  But the 6 o'clock FIDS was what kept us all  
going!

Of course, Jeanne's contribution to standards went back to before the  
creation of WG5, when she was involved in the early ISO activities in  
programming language standardisation which led to today's SC22 and  
its many working groups.  And she always continued to play a part in  
international standards even after leaving J3.

She will be sadly missed.

Miles Ellis