Thread Links Date Links
Thread Prev Thread Next Thread Index Date Prev Date Next Date Index

Re: Why (IMO) you should vote Yes to Motion 14.02



On 6/27/2010 17:02, Nate Hayes wrote:
George Corliss wrote:
My extrapolation of Nate's argument below sounds just a little bit like
Bill Walster's, "Containment is REQUIRED; all else are quality of
implementation issues." Or simply, "Thou shalt not lie."

A standard requiring (almost) only containment would allow InfSup and
MidRad, its exception-handling could be quite simple (but not trivial),
and there probably would be (shudder) NO common underlying levels or
theory.

Would that be any "standard" at all?

I don't agree there would be no underlying levels or theory, but otherwise,
yes, I think what you describe actually sounds pretty good! :-)

On the counter to your argument, though, I don't expect anyone will stop
using fast matrix multiply in Intlab just because 1788 (apparently) is
going
to decree the software is non-conforming. However, the question
lingering in
my mind then becomes: has P1788 really accomplished anything relevant
except
creating a bunch of rules no one likes to follow?


Hmmm ... That seems to lead us to the questions:
"What is a standard, anyway?" and "Why do we want a standard
or why is it important to have a standard?" and "What do we
wish to accomplish with a standard?"

Baker



--

---------------------------------------------------------------
R. Baker Kearfott,    rbk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx   (337) 482-5346 (fax)
(337) 482-5270 (work)                     (337) 993-1827 (home)
URL: http://interval.louisiana.edu/kearfott.html
Department of Mathematics, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
(Room 217 Maxim D. Doucet Hall, 1403 Johnston Street)
Box 4-1010, Lafayette, LA 70504-1010, USA
---------------------------------------------------------------