wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM (Mitch Bradley) (07/06/90)
About the first thing that the ANS Forth Technical committee did (this was before I was a member) was to send out a survey form asking vendors about their Forth products, including which standard(s) they conformed to, how many users for the product, where the product deviates from whatever standard it is based on, what extensions it has, and what the vendor would like to see in the new standard. The survey also requested a copy of the manual describing the product. I know that this did indeed happen, because Bradley Forthware (my company) received a copy of the questionnaire (again, this was long before I was involved in any way with the ANS Forth committee). Much of the "common usage" information is based on the results of that survey. It is augmented by the personal knowledge of committee members, many of whom are well-connected in the Forth community. For instance, a person may just happen to know that a certain product does things in a certain way, perhaps because he wrote the product (for instance, Don Colburn is a good source of information about MacForth, Dean Sanderson knows all about PolyForth), or perhaps because of extensive use of the product (Martin Tracy has taught courses about LMI Forth; I know a lot about F83). In other cases, we call vendors on the phone. The details of the text file input system were worked out after I personally telephoned, at my own expense, every vendor I could get in touch with. I also read some user manuals for systems for which the vendor was unavailable. At any given meeting, there are about 20 people present, representing a cross-section of the Forth community. It's not always the same 20 people, and ANYBODY is allowed to speak, not just TC members. In fact, most of the work gets done in "subcommittee", where anybody is allowed to VOTE. (The subcommittee presents their results to the TC, where only TC members can vote, although non-TC-members can still speak up. The TC generally either accepts the subcommitte recommendation in cases where there was a high degree of consensus, or sends the proposal back to the subcommitte in cases where there was a substantial minority). So, I claim that the committee works on the basis of the best information that is reasonably obtainable. I guarantee you that "off the wall" claims do not go unchallenged. Mitch