Mitch.Bradley@ENG.SUN.COM (05/09/91)
It strikes me that I am wasting my time and everybody else's too in responding to these back-and-forth finger pointing exercises. Therefore, I resolve not to participate in any more discussions about whether Basis is vague and unclear in general. I will participate in efforts to improve Basis in specific areas, so long as suggestions, criticisms, and comments are phrased in a helpful and positive tone. My final position is this: Unspecific criticisms are not helpful. Like it or not, it is not feasible at this time to completely rewrite Basis from the ground up, in hopes that the result will be an improvement. The only feasible approach is to fix particular areas of Basis that are incorrect, misleading, or ambiguous. In order to do that, we need good feedback. With analogy to a control system, if the only feedback provided is "the answer is wrong; try again", the system is likely to oscillate and the output may never reach the desired state. The more precise the error signal, the faster the loop will reach a stable, accurate answer. I realize that people will differ in their respective abilities to analyze deficiencies. I only ask that you give it your best shot, and try to do as much as you can to identify exactly what you don't understand, and what the possible meanings are according to your reading of the document. The quality of the final result will reflect the amount of community effort that goes into good reviewing. The committee members are only human, with time constraints like everybody else. Thanks, Mitch.Bradley@Eng.Sun.COM