Subject: Document SC22 N2154

From: "william c. rinehuls" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 May 1996 16:43:04 -0400 (EDT)

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22
Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces
Secretariat:  U.S.A. (ANSI)

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22

N2154

June 1996

TITLE:           SC22 Comments on ISO/IEC DIrectives, Part 3, Third
                 Edition

SOURCE:          Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22

WORK ITEM:       N/A

STATUS:          N/A

CROSS REFERENCE: N/A

DOCUMENT TYPE:   N/A

ACTION:          To SC22 Member Bodies, WG Conveners and HODs for 
                 information.

Address reply to:
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 Secretariat
William C. Rinehuls
8457 Rushing Creek Court
Springfield, VA 22153 USA
Tel:  +1 (703) 912-9680
Fax:  +1 (703) 912-2973
email:  [email-masked]

_____________________________________________________________________________

Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 17:13:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: Bob Follett <[email-masked]>
To: Bill Rinehuls <[email-masked]>
Subject: ISO/IEC Directives, Part 3, Third Edition (fwd)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 1 May 1996 21:02:01 -0400 (EDT)
From: Bob Follett <[email-masked]>
To: SC22 <[email-masked]>
Subject: ISO/IEC Directives, Part 3, Third Edition

I have just become aware of a draft revision of Part 3 of the Directives.
Since I thought this would be of interest to you, I inquired about our
ability to comment on them.  We can, but to do so I will need any input by
May 13!!!  

I do not have a copy of the draft revision but I did obtain by fax a copy
of the Foreword which lists the main changes.  I have reproduced below the
relevant portion of the Foreword for your information.  Following it are a
couple of my observations about it. 

I believe this has been circulated to National Bodies for comment, so some
of you may have seen the document and been able to comment on it earlier.
I don't recall seeing it at the SC level and I would certainly think our
project editors should have had more opportunity to comment.  

     ********** Excerpt from Directives Part 3 Foreword **********

This third edition has been completely restructured in order to separate
as far as possible the rules into constituent parts concerning structure,
drafting and presentation, and to present this part of the ISO/IEC
Directives in accordance with these rules so that it acts as an example in
its own right.  Furthermore, minor changes have been incorporated to
facilitate the application of the rules to standards in electronic form,
to take into consideration that drafts should be optimized for the capture
of information, to incorporate minor editorial modifications in accordance
with comments received from member bodies and to bring this part of the
Directives up to date with certain revised editorial rules.  The major
part of the text remains unchanged, although the restructuring tends to
suggest otherwise.  The main changes are listed below:

-- the introductory text in the Normative references clause has been
revised (2.3.3 in 1989 edition; 6.2.2 in this edition);

-- it is no longer permissible to subdivide a standard into sections or
chapters (3.3.2 in 1989 edition);

-- annexes are presented in the order in which they are cited in the text
(2.4.8, 2.5.1 and 3.3.6 in 1989 edition; 5.2.5, 6.3.8 and 6.4.1 in this
edition), except that a bibliography is the last annex;

-- notes integrated in the text and footnotes to the text are not numbered
consecutively throughout the text but are numbered per numbered
subdivision of text and per page respectively (2.5.3 and 2.5.2 in 1989
edition; 6.5.1 and 6.5.2 in this edition);

-- the text concerning mathematical formulae has been revised for
conformity with ISO 31-0 (4.6.1 in 1989 edition; 6.6.10 in this edition);

-- annex B concerning the" Drafting and presentation of terms and
definitions" has been revised in conformity with ISO 10241:1992;

-- a new informative annex" Checklist concerning quantities and units to
be used in International Standards" (annex E) has been added. 

      **********  End of Directives Part 3 Excerpt  **********

My comments:

1. It is possible that some of the references may be typed incorrectly - I
am working off a fax of a fax and the numbers are very hard to read.
Actually, so are some words but I think I have them all correctly.

2. I am not an editor but it seemed to me that the second bullet above (no
longer permissible to subdivide into sections) might be a significant
problem for us.  From looking at our standards, they appeared to me to all
be subdivided into sections.  I queried Keith Brannon on this and he
informed me that a "clause" is not a "section."  He said that very few
standards are divided into sections - thought he noted that POSIX was one
of them.  After reading the titles of the sections of the POSIX standard
and the titles of the clauses in some of our other standards, I fail so
see much of a distinction.  However, it appears that this bullet may not
be much of a problem as long as we don't call them "sections." 

3. Lisa Rajchel commented in forwarding the Foreword to me that she didn't
"think that there is anything earth-shattering!  As always, JTC1 Editors
can request exceptions to the Rules!"

4. If you do see something "earth-shattering," please let me know by May
13 and I will send it on for consideration. 

5. If you really want to see the text of the revised Part 3, check with
your National Body.  

Regards,
Bob Follett

____________________________________________________________________________
From:  Bob Follett
To:    Lisa Rajchel
cc:    Keith Brannon; Bill Rinehuls
Subject:  SC22 Comments on ISO/IEC DIrectives, Part 3, Third Edition
Date:  Tuesday, May 14, 1996 10:59 AM

Lisa, following are SC22 comments on the draft ISO/IEC Directives, Part 3,
Third Edition.  As chairman of SC22, I compiled these comments from an
informal survey of SC22 conducted by email since time did not permit a
formal vote.  I would appreciate it if you would incorporate them with any
other JTC 1 comments you may have.  Because of the short time frame, I am
also copying Keith Brannon but with the understanding that they could be
modified when incorporated into any JTC 1 comments.

The following SC22 comments are based upon the list of main changes to the
ISO/IEC Directives, Part 3, in the Foreword of the draft revision.

1.  The fourth listed change states:  "notes ingegrated into the text and
footnotes to the text are not numbered consecutively throughout the text
but are numbered per numbered subdivision of text and per page
respectively."  This change is likely to cause significant problems for
several reasons:

    a)  Many word processing programs do not support numbering footnotes
per page.
    
    b)  Without word processing support, footnotes would have to be
numbered manually.  From a practical viewpoint, this is impossible since
the pages are not determined until the end, and then will change when
modifications are made.

    c)  Pages will not be the same after translation to another language.
Numbering by page appears to have similar problems to line numbering of
text and should be rejected for the same reasons.

    d)  As we progress to more on-line versions of documents, standards
may be viewed on computers where printed page numbers are irrelevant.  If
printed, the varying paper sizes and local printing conventions will
likely cause differences in page appearances even for standards written in
the same language.

2.  The second listed change states:  "it is no longer permissible to
subdivide a standard into sections or chapters."  Several of our standards
currently have "sections" and we are unclear as to how this constraint
will be interpreted with regard to these standards.  It is also unclear
what benefit is being derived from this change.

3.  The third listed change states:  "annexes are presented in the order
in which they are cited in the text ..."  This appears to be an unncessary
constraint that will require reorganization of many documents for no
apparent benefit.

Robert H. Follett
Chairman, JTC 1/SC22

_____________________________________________________________________________
From:  LISA RAJCHEL ([email-masked])
To:    Keith Brannon ([email-masked])
Subject:  FW: SC22 Comments on ISO/IEC DIrectives, Part 3, Third Edition
Date:  Wed. 15 May 96 09:34:00 edt

Hi Keith,

These are the only comments you will be getting from JTC 1 folks.  Can you
please response, as appropriate, to Bob Follett's comments?

Thanks

_____________________________________________________________________________
Date:  Wed. 15 May 1996 18:41:00 +0200
From:  "Brannon, Keith" ([email-masked])
To:  Bob Follett ([email-masked])
cc:  Lisa Rajchel ([email-masked])
Subject:  TR: FW: SC22 Comments on ISO/IEC DIrect

Bob,

Thanks for the comments I have had them included for consideration by the
maintenance team.
Regards
Keith
_____________________________________________________________________________
From:  follett @access.digex.net Wed May 15 11:27:03 1996
Date:  Wed 15 May 1996 10:59:06 -0400 (EDT)
To:  Bill Rinehuls ([email-masked])
Subject:  TR: FW: SC22 Comments on ISO/IEC Direct (fwd)

As you can see from Keith Brannon's message, the SC 22 comments will be
considered by the maintenance team for the revision of the ISO/IEC
Directives, Part 3.

Bob Follett

____________________________end of document ____________________________