Re: Motion P1788/M0036.03: Flavors: NO
Dear Alan
I am glad that you have stated so fully the objections you have to motion 36 and its rationale. But ...
There is no Father Christmas writing motions, nor a magic workforce of Elves checking that they are logically correct and consistently worded, etc.
There is only us, the members of the working group. The proposer of each motion must be its Santa Claus. For this motion it was yours truly, Technical Editor, who is at the same time trying to write revised draft text of Level 2 ... and decorations ... and I/O ..., with the help of Christian Keil, the other TE, who does what he can while holding down a full time job. (Post retirement, I only have to hold down a part time job.) And hopefully we have a life, and family, too.
You, the members of P1788, must be those magic elves. There is no one else.
For this motion, the elves who have helped me improve concepts and wording have been primarily George Corliss, Alexandre Goldszteijn, Michel Hack, Christian Keil, Vincent Lefevre (a big thank-you to him). Thanks also to Juergen and Ulrich for giving reasons why they dislike the whole flavors concept, at this stage of the project. Apologies to those I've missed.
The time for the elves to get busy, is early in the discussion period. An elf who waits till the penultimate day of voting -- and then says what is wrong with the work without detailing what is needed to put it right -- forgoes most of the elves' magic power, and thereby the influence and honour due to him or her.
Alan, I'll bet that many of the things you call inconsistencies are misunderstandings on your part. Vincent has pointed out some, correctly I believe. Will you give me a detailed list of each wrong thing and your proposed correction? Refer, in each instance, to specific sentences, concepts, etc. in the current motion and rationale, so we can get our teeth into your objections.
You may convince us an improved flavors motion is needed. Will you submit it and pilot it through submission and discussion to a vote? You are well placed to give us a broader perspective, thanks to your knowledge of, and concern for, exact real computing. Your reward will be due influence and honour. The cost to you will be to spend the time needed to broaden your own perspective.
If not you, now, then who, when?
Regards
John Pryce
On 9 Sep 2012, at 10:05, Alan Eliasen wrote:
> My vote on Motion P1788/M0036.03: Flavors is NO.
>
> With any NO vote, I am required to state what would bring me to a "YES."
>
> In most ways, I agree with the spirit of creating a standard that
> allows for a common set of operations, and allows implementations to
> extend that with a "better" set of operations for some purposes and
> boundary cases (e.g. Kaucher intervals, or disjoint unions of intervals,
> or various handlings of infinities, or arbitrary-precision, or symbolic
> calculations.)
>
> I would tend to vote YES for a motion that has been thought through
> more clearly than this one. The rationale paper is muddled, does not
> define terms that it uses, is inconsistent in its terminology (for
> example, it defines "C-opinst" but then in some places uses the term
> "common opinst" which is not clear if it refers to the same term; there
> are many such instances of inconsistent editing,) is not consistent with
> the text of the Motion, has open-ended questions, notes to self that
> indicate that further research is necessary, inconsistent line wrapping
> and notation, and other more fundamental problems.
>
> The text of the Motion does also not even use the same terminology as
> the text of the Rationale. The Motion cannot stand alone (and the text
> of the Motion is what we're ultimately voting on,) the Rationale is not
> self-consistent, and the Motion and Rationale are not consistent with
> each other. These are fundamental editing problems. We need to do
> better. Any time we demand the time of hundreds of busy experts, we
> need to make sure that we've done our job of editing properly. (My
> mantra to myself when composing group e-mails is that "if it's not worth
> my time to edit and format and proofread properly, it's not worth
> people's time to read it." I delete many, many emails without sending
> based on this rule.)
>
> I would strongly suggest that this motion be tabled, edited, and made
> more coherent, in which case it might find more enthusiastic adherents.
> A rationale paper should make its argument persuasively. The current
> rationale paper does not inspire confidence.