Re: [HACKERS] ONLY

At 12:54 PM 2/7/00 -0600, Taral wrote:
>On Mon, 7 Feb 2000, Don Baccus wrote:
>
>> While all language standards have some bugs of this sort, the SQL standard
>> seems to be full of them.

>*sigh* I hate it when people do this. YOU try writing a standard with that
>much information such that nobody will come back to you and say "you left
>such-and-such undefined".

I was at the very first organizational meeting for the creation of a
standard for Pascal, and was very active at the beginning of that 
process (delegating it to someone else in my company when it got bogged
down in paralytic discussions over whether to use a comma or semicolon to
separate particular clauses, etc).

Since the BSI nailed me to the cross and made me agree to be one
of a half-dozen folks who met annually to accept or reject proposed
additions to their test suite, I'm actually quite used to having folks
tell me "you left such-and-such undefined".  "you" in the collective sense
of those who drafted the standard.  Sometimes they were even right.

I was also the BSI's designated technical consultant to the ISO 
committee convened by the BSI to standardize Modula-2.  Though I
got out of that thankless task after a year.  I don't even know
if they ever finished, because I dropped out of the computer industry
shortly thereafter.

So ... I am aware of how hard the problem is.  And I've spent far
too much of my life reading and reviewing proposed standards.

The SQL seems to have more than its fair share of contradictions.

Then again, SQL is far more complex than either of the languages I
mentioned above.  So's C++, and its standard is a morass that reflects
the fact that the language itself is a morass.  And Bjarne's just an...oh,
let's not go there.

I had friends (and one employee) on the ANSI committee, and dropped in on
one meeting just to lend a sympathetic ear.  I'm really glad I was smart
enough to never come back, one meeting was enough!

> It's _very_ hard and requires a lot of definitions.

Yes, I know.  That doesn't change the fact that the result in this
case is extremely opaque!



- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza@pacifier.com> Nature photos, on-line guides, Pacific Northwest Rare Bird Alert
Serviceand other goodies at http://donb.photo.net.