perm filename CLEDIT.MSG[COM,LSP]2 blob
sn#855611 filedate 1988-04-07 generic text, type C, neo UTF8
COMMENT ā VALID 00002 PAGES
C REC PAGE DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002 ā31-Mar-88 1358 chapman%aitg.DEC@decwrl.dec.com editorial subcommittee notes
C00018 ENDMK
Cā;
ā31-Mar-88 1358 chapman%aitg.DEC@decwrl.dec.com editorial subcommittee notes
Received: from decwrl.dec.com by SAIL.Stanford.EDU with TCP; 31 Mar 88 13:58:43 PST
Received: by decwrl.dec.com (5.54.4/4.7.34)
id AA15156; Thu, 31 Mar 88 13:52:57 PST
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 88 13:52:57 PST
Message-Id: <8803312152.AA15156@decwrl.dec.com>
From: chapman%aitg.DEC@decwrl.dec.com
To: @[chapman]eddis@decwrl.dec.com, chapman%aitg.DEC@decwrl.dec.com
Subject: editorial subcommittee notes
Editorial Subcommittee Report
March, 1988
1 INTRODUCTION
The editorial subcommittee of X3J13 met on March 15, 1988,
from 2-5 PM at Lucid. Attendees were:
Skona Brittain Barry Margolin
Kathy Chapman Larry Masinter
Linda deMicheal Guy Steele
Dick Gabriel Walter van Roggen
Sonya Keene Bob Mathis
(did I leave anyone out?)
This memo summarizes the important results of the meeting,
and lists the action items from the meeting.
2 SUMMARY
In general, the attendees felt that the schedule for
completion of the standard was agressive, but doable. In
addition, there is an increased interest in completing the
standard on, or ahead of, schedule, due to the commitment the US
has made to the ISLISP group. Following are the decisions made by
the attendees.
1. The outline and contents of the chapters of the standard have
been modified. The next section of this memo details the
changes.
2. A formal specification of the base forms of CL will be done.
It will begin in July or sooner. Initially the work will be
done by Dick Gabriel and Kathy Chapman. It is hoped that Will
Clinger and Jonathan Rees will have time to assist with the
effort.
3. It was decided that the use of a large set of special fonts in
explanatory material (will be Chapter 3 in the new outline) is
distracting to the reader. Therefore, special fonts will only
be employed to a limited extent in Chapter 3, but will be used
more extensively in Chapter 4 (see Action Items section).
!
Page 2
4. It was decided that the use of a professional indexer is
probably desirable (see Action Items section).
5. The reader syntax and semantic rules, and other semantic rules
of the language CL, will be specified in natural language in
the form of a set of evaluation rules. These will appear in
Chapters 2 and 3 (see outline in the next section) (see Action
Items section).
6. It was decided that the issues surrounding language extensions
should be examined in detail (see Action Items section).
7. A new list of parts of the document to be reviewed, when they
will be ready for review, and who is to review them, is to be
constructed (see Action Items section).
3 NEW OUTLINE AND CONTENTS OF STANDARD CHAPTERS
Following is the new outline for the CL standard.
1. Chapter 1 - Introduction - Same outline as current chapter 1;
font key explanation is expanded, compliance section is
rewritten with clarity in mind, language extensions section is
modified (see Action Items).
2. Chapter 2 - Evaluation - This chapter will contain a clear
model of read, eval, phases of processing... (see Action
Items).
3. Chapter 3 - Concepts - This chapter will contain the following
information:
1. A description of the Lisp reader, and a forward reference
to the read function. In addition, the character set will
appear first, and all the syntactic characteristics
(whether they involve `special' tokens or not), will
appear in the list of operators.
2. The data types section will contain an explanation of the
way CL uses data types.
3. The basic language constructs section will be moved to
Chapter 2 (the evaluation model).
4. The rest of this chapter will contain information similar
to what is contained in Chapter 1 of the CLOS
specification, i.e., an explanation of how the language
works with forward pointers to forms that will be
explained in detail (but autonomously) in Chapter 4.
!
Page 3
4. Chapter 4 - Form, Constant, and Variable Descriptions - This
chapter now includes the information that had previously been
a part of Chapters 4, 5, and 7. Following are some details
about how this chapter will look.
1. All functions, macros, special forms, constants, and
variables that are part of CL will be listed
alphabetically. All entries with non-alpha characters
appearing in the first position of the name of the entry
will be positioned at the end of the alphabetic list, and
will be alphabetized according to the first alpha or
numeric character appearing in the name of the entry.
2. The `Inputs' and `Outputs' labels in the f/m/sf
descriptions are changed to `Arguments' and `Values',
respectively.
3. The `Base' label is removed, and the fact that a f/m/sf is
part of the base is notated under the label `Notes'.
4. A `Side Effects' label has been added.
5. A `See Also' label was suggested; however, its meaning in
a strict specification is not clear. For example, does a
See Also reference mean that the information pointed to
somehow affects the result of the evaluation of the form
being described? Please comment on the addition of a `See
Also' label.
5. Chapter 5 - Syntax - same as current Chapter 8.
6. Chapter 6 - Semantics - same as current Chapter 9.
!
Page 4
4 ACTION ITEMS
Following is a list of action items resulting from both the
subcommittee meeting, and the X3J13 committee meeting. Please let
me know if I missed any items, or have incorrectly assigned an
item to a person.
Responsible people Action Item
Kathy Chapman Get X3 to pay for professional indexer
Kathy Chapman Create a format for proposal submission
Barry Margolin Create a proposal on how language extensions are
Larry Masinter to be handled
Guy Steele Create an evaluation model strawman
Dick Gabriel
Kathy Chapman Create a review cycle proposal for editorial
committee reviews
Kathy Chapman Create a review proposal for X3J13 committee
Kathy Chapman Contact typesetter to review font usage
5 OPEN ISSUES
Following is a list of decisions that have to be made at
future meetings.
1. Will new language features (like CLOS) be imbedded in the
document or will they appear as a supplement?
2. Should we specifically try to include the ISO community in our
review cycles?
3. Other issues?
6 SUMMARY
The people that reviewed the document provided highly
valuable technical insight and corrections. In order for us to
make this document as correct as possible, it will be necessary
for this sort of review to continue to the document's completion.
!
Page 5
As the document becomes larger and larger, this sort of review
becomes more and more intimidating and time-consuming. Therefore,
I'd like to request help now working out the review cycle details,
and later changing the review cycle algorithm if it doesn't work
for you. It would be much better to speak up if you don't have
time to review your part than to leave it left unread.
The first request I have may be the most important to our
success. A review cycle plan will be coming to you within this
month. Please review it carefully, analyze the time you will have
to spend on this effort, and propose a task you can comfortably
accomplish. If I don't hear from you concerning the review cycle
plan, I will assume you do not wish to review the standard. If
you are passing the document around to other people, please make
sure they realize that their timely review is necessary to the
success of this effort. An unreviewed section could potentially
remain untouched, and perhaps will be wrong. Urge the people you
are counting on to review certain parts to only volunteer for as
much as they can handle.