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      An update on UNIX|= Standards Activities - Part 1

                          Overview

                     February 20, 1989

           Shane P. McCarron, NAPS International

This marks the fifth in a series of articles about the Unix
Standards community.  Before we get too far here, I would
like to apologize for the lateness of this particular
report.  While it should have been out in mid-February, it
is now late March and I am just completing the editing.
Hopefully this type of delay will not be seen again.

THe big news this quarter is that the ANSI C Standard
X3.159-1989 has been approved by the X3 Secretariat.  This
means that the X3 people are satisfied with the technical
merit of the standard, as well as with the procedures that
were followed in completing it.  Once it has been formally
reviewed by ANSI, we will have an American National standard
for the C language.  This is good and bad.  The C Language
standard has a few glaring flaw that make it all but
impossible to write a truly portable application.  I am
certain that it is possible to write a mostly portable
application with little difficulty, but that wasn't really
the goal of the standard.  More on this later.

This quarter we have reports from a number of committees.
They are in various states of repair, with varying levels of
detail.  I have received little feedback from you about how
much detail should be included in the reports.
Consequently, it has been left up to the Usenix Watchdog
Committee contacts to generate as much or as little material
as they see fit.  If you have comments on this, please send
them to me or directly to the contact person whose report
you are commenting on.

As always, we are looking for a few good people to represent
us in standards committees.  If you would like to work with
us in trying to bring the world of standards to light,
please contact the Standards Watchdog Committee's Volunteer
Coordinator, Marc Teitelbaum <marc@okeeffe.berkeley.edu>.

__________

  |= UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T in the U.S. and
    other countries.


                           - 2 -

Please look to the subsequent postings in this series for
all of the reports.  If you have any comments or
suggestions, please contact me at:

          Shane P. McCarron
          NAPS International
          117 Mackubin St.
          Suite 6
          St. Paul, MN  55102
          +1 (612) 224-9239
          ahby@bungia.mn.org
          uunet!bungia.mn.org!ahby

Publisher's note:  Shane has moved and taken a new job.
We are currently looking for a new report editor.
Interested applicants please send electronic mail to
jsq@usenix.org or talk to Marc Teitelbaum at the IEEE 1003
meeting in Minneapolis, 24-28 April.  -John S. Quarterman

Volume-Number: Volume 16, Number 31