[comp.lang.c] ANSI C standard distribution

henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (02/08/89)

In article <1404@mcgill-vision.UUCP> mouse@mcgill-vision.UUCP (der Mouse) writes:
>(My reference is K&RV2; until machine-readable copies of the draft or
>proposal or standard or whateveritisthisweek become available, it will
>remain so.  I mean, really, presumably this standard is supposed to be
>used, so what do they do but refuse to use the best available means of...

Whether machine-readable copies are the "best available means" depends
on what you are trying to do and on your definition of "best".  If you
are a standards organization that (a) wants to be sure that altered copies
are not passed off as being "the standard", and (b) pays a major part of
the rent out of revenues from sales of printed standards, deciding not
to distribute machine-readable copies is rational and probably correct.
(One may dispute the relative importance of (a) and (b), but the cynic who
thinks it's all (b) is definitely wrong.)

What, exactly, is your complaint?  Do you have a machine-readable copy
of K&R2?  If not, why are you satisfied with it?  You can bet your booties
that Brian and Dennis have machine-readable copy and have decided not to
distribute it, probably as a condition of their book contract; why is this
acceptable behavior for well-paid technical experts and highly profitable
commercial publishers but not for underfunded standards organizations?
-- 
Allegedly heard aboard Mir: "A |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
toast to comrade Van Allen!!"  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

mouse@mcgill-vision.UUCP (der Mouse) (02/18/89)

In article <1989Feb7.225554.3086@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> In article <1404@mcgill-vision.UUCP> mouse@mcgill-vision.UUCP (der Mouse) writes:

>> (My reference is K&RV2; [sputtering about machine-readable copies of
>> the proposal/standard]

> Whether machine-readable copies are the "best available means" depends
> on what you are trying to do and on your definition of "best".
> [points out this (a) cuts down on false "standards" and (b) pays some
> bills]

> What, exactly, is your complaint?  Do you have a machine-readable
> copy of K&R2?  If not, why are you satisfied with it?

That's a good question, and I even went so far as to think about it for
a bit.  A partial answer appears below; another part of the answer
would be that I'm *not* entirely satisfied without a softcopy of K&RV2.

> You can bet your booties that Brian and Dennis have machine-readable
> copy

The copyright and publishing info page even says so: "This book was
typeset (pic|tbl|eqn|troff -ms) in Times Roman and Courier by the
authors, using an Autologic APS-5 phototypesetter and a DEC VAX 8550
running the 9th Edition of the UNIX(R) operating system."

> and have decided not to distribute it, probably as a condition of
> their book contract; why is this acceptable behavior for well-paid
> technical experts and highly profitable commercial publishers but not
> for underfunded standards organizations?

(It certainly *would* annoy me, if K&RV2 were being sold only by
mail-order.  I hate mail-order.)

Let's see.  In the order in which they occur to me,

a) The price of a book includes the physical book, not just the
   information therein.  (How good is the typesetting, binding, etc of
   what you get if you order the Standard?  I don't know; see also d.)

b) Inertia: I'm used to paying for books.

c) Price: I have no firm idea of the price of a copy of the draft, but
   my memory does come back with >$100US.  (Is this accurate?)

d) Mail-order only, not available at the corner bookstore.

e) "Basicness": K&R is *more* than the Standard; it contains examples
   and explanations and a bit of a tutorial.  The appendix, which is as
   close as K&R comes to the Standard, is only 71 pages out of 261.

Another part of it, I suppose, is what I percive as a bit of "Here is
how thou shalt write thy C code.  Oh, you want to know how?  Sorry,
you've got to pay $X before we'll tell you.  But you still have to do
it that way."  However fair or unfair, I resent that a bit.

(Oh yes.  Whenever I say Standard above, the term should be taken to
include drafts, as appropriate.)

					der Mouse

			old: mcgill-vision!mouse
			new: mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu

henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (02/19/89)

In article <1446@mcgill-vision.UUCP> mouse@mcgill-vision.UUCP (der Mouse) writes:
>a) The price of a book includes the physical book, not just the
>   information therein.  (How good is the typesetting, binding, etc of
>   what you get if you order the Standard?  I don't know; see also d.)

Binding is typically tech-report style, softcover and unimpressive.
Past ANSI standards have been okay as far as typesetting goes, although
apparently IEEE really botched the typesetting job on POSIX.

>c) Price: I have no firm idea of the price of a copy of the draft, but
>   my memory does come back with >$100US.  (Is this accurate?)

The drafts were pretty expensive (I think it was US$80) because they were
basically limited-market special-order items.  Unfortunately, don't expect
the final standard to be dirt-cheap; standards tend to be pricey no matter
where they come from, because the standards group likes to be able to pay
the rent.

>d) Mail-order only, not available at the corner bookstore.

No reason why it couldn't be available at the corner bookstore, if you
convince your corner bookstore that there will be mass demand for it
and are willing to pay a bit extra (or ANSI gives them a discount on
a bulk order).  Low-demand low-profit items will almost always be
mail order only, for obvious reasons.

>e) "Basicness": K&R is *more* than the Standard; it contains examples
>   and explanations and a bit of a tutorial.  The appendix, which is as
>   close as K&R comes to the Standard, is only 71 pages out of 261.

True.  On the other hand, K&R is also *less* than the Standard, partly
because it predated the final standard and will be out of date in minor
ways, and partly because it does not include the actual wording of the
standard, which is crucial when fine points must be resolved.  K&R is
definitely a better place to start to learn about ANSI C -- standards
are *not* easy reading -- but it is not really an adequate reference
if being 100% right is important to you.
-- 
The Earth is our mother;       |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
our nine months are up.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu