(j3.2006) [Re: Spreadsheet from meeting 167]

[Van Snyder]

> willing to delay the standard

My advocacy will delay the standard now????  We began work on
Fortran 2008 at the next meeting after we finished 2003 -- before
ISO publication.  We have now done essentially nothing for FOUR
YEARS since completing technical work on 2008, and Malcolm is
sniveling about ME advocating delay!!!  The FOUR YEAR delay here
is not of my making.  I have repeatedly tried to AVOID the delay,
by asking several times when we would start considering new
features, in an organized way.  The question was met with dead
silence, and sometimes with hostility.

Meanwhile, why did we pass away five meetings working on Dan's
half-baked favor for a sister working group, that has almost
nothing to do with Fortran?  This should have been much more
polished before J3 saw anything of it in plenary or subgroup.  I
sent extensive comments in e-mail, and nothing was done about them
until we wasted time during 199.  David observed there is no
urgency for this project.  I have never submitted such an
unpolished piece of work, and insisted that the committee finish
it in plenary and subgroup.  Maybe the real problem is that it's
impossible to polish a turd.

In 2004, we asked for public input.  Walt set up a web page for
it.  We spent five meetings considering and prioritizing
proposals.  This year, without notice, Dan's little paper 12-183
appeared, without solicitation for input from anybody.  Since it
appeared on Monday of the meeting, not two weeks in advance, it
was technically out of order.  I view what happened at 199 as
being nowhere near our prior standard of conduct.

We finished the enormous work plan for Fortran 2008 in five years,
notwithstand BSI schizophrenia of asking for coarrays at 167
(UK-001), and then asking in Tokyo at 186 to remove it from the
work plan, after it was completed!  Having spent four years
treading water, against my objections, I'm the one being
criticized for advocating, and having advocated for a very long
time, to do something productive?

> and delay the compilers implementing other features

Compiler developers put their own individual priorities upon the
projects in the standard's revision.  If they delay implementing
other features, that's their decision, not mine, not J3's, not
WG5's.  I have not complained to any vendor about their
priorities.  The only advice I have offered about my sponsors'
priorities is that kind type parameters for PDTs are more useful
to us than length type parameters.