From -7813705209907496224 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f78e5,82b9a0e2d78eb842 X-Google-Attributes: gidf78e5,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1995-03-12 01:31:34 PST Newsgroups: comp.std.c++ Path: bga.com!news.sprintlink.net!uunet!in1.uu.net!mole-end!mat From: mat@mole-end.matawan.nj.us Subject: Re: Sealed Classes Message-ID: <1995Mar11.130641.21198@mole-end.matawan.nj.us> Organization: : References: <3jfilh$m8s@panix3.panix.com> Date: Sat, 11 Mar 1995 13:06:41 GMT Lines: 74 In article , maxtal@Physics.usyd.edu.au (John Max Skaller) writes: > In article <1995Mar8.071916.2704@mole-end.matawan.nj.us>, > wrote: > >In article <3jfilh$m8s@panix3.panix.com>, tmurphy@panix.com (Timothy Murphy) writes: > >> Sealed classes. > > > >Not important enough to add to C++ at this time. > > > >Besides, this is the wrong place, and you are using the wrong way, to > >propose a language extension. > > > >And you are about 24 months too late. > That is a bit unfair and not necessarily true. ... > Second, anyone can propose an extension during the > ANSI public review, and the committee is bound to consider > such a request (even if only to politely reject it). True. It's hard to imagine that anything less than a compelling argument will be accepted, given that it takes about three meetings for even a good, sound proposal without glitches of any kind to actually be presented to the committee as a whole. ... > Thirdly, the timing and agenda set by the committee > is not an end, but a plan to achieve a Standard. > The committee does not decide on the Standard, the National > Bodies of SC22 make that decision. If they choose, they > can send the Working Paper back to the committee for revision, > irrespective of any "plan" of the committee. True enough--but the hurry is (in part) the requirement of the organizations to which those national bodies belong that if the work isn't completed in a certain (fuzzy) time frame, it be abandoned. (Almost) nobody on the committee wants to rush--but The Powers That Can Make Us Throw Our Work Away are forcing the point. ... > Fifthly, whether or not the committee had much, > or even any, choice in the matter, the details of the > Standardisation process have been withheld from the users -- > the public. And we are going to PAY for not leaking > details to the public earlier. More important, the public > is going to pay. > > A lot of users are going to write comments > on issues the committee has _already_ considered. > How can they know, since they do not have access to > the minutes of meetings? Then let's make the minutes public--at the appropriate time, when the committee feels the work is ready to go to the public. How would you like to take an exam with the exam's grader looking over your shoulder and taking points away before you've had a chance to check your work? How would you like to try to write a proposal with someone broadcasting your speculations to the proposal's audience before you've had a chance to decide what belongs in the proposal and what doesn't? You _need_ some time and space for deliberation before you present the work. ANY work. Would any union contracts ever get written if the entire membership of the union and every stockholder of the company were given a seat at the negotiating table? I think not. Of course, what's really needed may be a live Rationale document--and that's what we haven't got. Most of the answers should be in that Rationale; we shouldn't have to comb the deliberations to find each one. -- (This man's opinions are his own.) From mole-end Mark Terribile mat@mole-end.matawan.nj.us, Somewhere in Matawan, NJ (Training and consulting in C, C++, UNIX, etc.)