Re: questionable syntax choices

I enthusiastically endorse Jonathan's statement below.

We have a significant amount of work to do that deals with getting the 
language semantics "right" (and in merely figuring out what "right" means 
in some cases).  I think the time for beauty contests such as what 
punctuation to use here and there has passed and I encourage us to thank 
the authors of comments for taking an interest, but declining to repeatedly 
revisit decisions already taken on such minor matters.

Mark, this is not a tirade directed at you; it's really to me and the rest 
of the WG, encouraging (as Jonathan said) us to focus on really important 
things.  That probably means that well-intentioned comments such as yours 
will not result in language changes, but that's sometimes the price we pay 
for progress.  I do thank you for your interest and hope that you will 
continue to help us find and correct serious errors in our specs.

Hope this helps,
    Jim

At 11:06 AM 4/29/2004 Thursday, Jonathan Robie wrote:

>scott_boag@us.ibm.com wrote:
>
>>>2) Smilies are an odd choice for comment delimiters.  Why choose 
>>>something that isn't used by any other common programming languages?
>>
>>Hi Mark. Do you have a concrete suggestion for an alternative?  As I 
>>think Mike Kay pointed out, we have considered quite a few other 
>>delimiters, and have indeed taken into consideration a survey of existing 
>>languages.  But if you have an alternative that you feel is clearly 
>>better, I would be interested (I have my own gripes with Smilies).  But 
>>nothing with slashes or stars please.
>
>Hi Scott,
>
>Personally, I will be encouraging the Working Group not to spend a lot of 
>time on the concrete syntax of comments. We have to stop spending so much 
>time on minor issues.
>
>Jonathan

========================================================================
Jim Melton --- Editor of ISO/IEC 9075-* (SQL)     Phone: +1.801.942.0144
Oracle Corporation        Oracle Email: jim dot melton at oracle dot com
1930 Viscounti Drive      Standards email: jim dot melton at acm dot org
Sandy, UT 84093-1063              Personal email: jim at melton dot name
USA                                                Fax : +1.801.942.3345
========================================================================
=  Facts are facts.  However, any opinions expressed are the opinions  =
=  only of myself and may or may not reflect the opinions of anybody   =
=  else with whom I may or may not have discussed the issues at hand.  =
========================================================================

Received on Thursday, 29 April 2004 13:51:21 UTC