Re: British PL/I standard
David Muxworthy
> This message is therefore to ask if PL/I users in the UK
(are there any?) would be affected by withdrawal of the BS.
Louisa wrote on 20/08/11:
> BSI might want to look at updating the BS standards, in view of
> significant enhancements to the language by IBM from 1994
> to the present time.
That is a different point. To produce a programming language standard
there has to be significant user demand across at least five countries
and enough people willing to work on the detailed development.
In his most recent report (2008) John Klensin, the ISO PL/I project
editor, wrote: "No activities or requests for additions or
clarifications during the last year or, indeed, the last decade. Both
ISO 6160 and the underlying US national document, ANS X3.53-1976
(now ANSI/INCITS-53/1976), have been reaffirmed multiple times. The
US Standard has been stabilized and the corresponding technical
activity was eliminated earlier this year".
I know it is the holiday period but to date, no-one on this newsgroup
has put forward a case for retaining the British version of the ISO
standard, or indeed said that PL/I is still in use in the UK.
David Muxworthy
Robin Vowels
> I wrote on 19/08/11:
> > This message is therefore to ask if PL/I users in the UK
> (are there any?) would be affected by withdrawal of the BS.
>
> Louisa wrote on 20/08/11:
> > BSI might want to look at updating the BS standards, in view of
> > significant enhancements to the language by IBM from 1994
> > to the present time.
>
> That is a different point. To produce a programming language standard
> there has to be significant user demand across at least five countries
> and enough people willing to work on the detailed development.
>
>
> clarifications during the last year or, indeed, the last decade. Both
> ISO 6160 and the underlying US national document, ANS X3.53-1976
> (now ANSI/INCITS-53/1976), have been reaffirmed multiple times. The
> US Standard has been stabilized and the corresponding technical
> activity was eliminated earlier this year".
>
> I know it is the holiday period but to date, no-one on this newsgroup
> has put forward a case for retaining the British version of the ISO
> standard, or indeed said that PL/I is still in use in the UK.
> David Muxworthy
Newsgroups were generally available and could be read easily via
Outlook Express.
Since 2nd August, that news service has ceased,
and few have people in many newsgroups have not acquired the
ability to read and post news.
Google's replacement doesn't work properly,
they don't respond to spam problems,
and requests are rejected outright.
You probably won't get any reponse on a newsgroup.
You might have more success on the list server.
Bill Gunshannon
Robin Vowels <robin....@gmail.com> writes:
> On Sep 1, 3:07 am, David Muxworthy <d.muxwor...@bcs.org.uk> wrote:
>> I wrote on 19/08/11:
>> > This message is therefore to ask if PL/I users in the UK
>> (are there any?) would be affected by withdrawal of the BS.
>>
>> Louisa wrote on 20/08/11:
>> > BSI might want to look at updating the BS standards, in view of
>> > significant enhancements to the language by IBM from 1994
>> > to the present time.
>>
>> That is a different point. To produce a programming language standard
>> there has to be significant user demand across at least five countries
>> and enough people willing to work on the detailed development.
>>
>> In his most recent report (2008) John Klensin, the ISO PL/I projecteditor, wrote: "No activities or requests for additions or
>>
>> clarifications during the last year or, indeed, the last decade. Both
>> ISO 6160 and the underlying US national document, ANS X3.53-1976
>> (now ANSI/INCITS-53/1976), have been reaffirmed multiple times. The
>> US Standard has been stabilized and the corresponding technical
>> activity was eliminated earlier this year".
>>
>> I know it is the holiday period but to date, no-one on this newsgroup
>> has put forward a case for retaining the British version of the ISO
>> standard, or indeed said that PL/I is still in use in the UK.
>> David Muxworthy
> Newsgroups were generally available and could be read easily via
> Outlook Express.
Newsgroups are still generally available and can be read with most browsers
or, for purists, with real newsreaders like Knews.
> Since 2nd August, that news service has ceased,
> and few have people in many newsgroups have not acquired the
> ability to read and post news.
> Google's replacement doesn't work properly,
> they don't respond to spam problems,
> and requests are rejected outright.
You could subscribe to news.individual.net for the paltry fee of 10 Euros
per year. Well filtered for SPAM and carrying all the serious groups I
know of.
> You probably won't get any reponse on a newsgroup.
I get responses on lots of stuff in newsgroups. That's where I am reading
this right now.
> You might have more success on the list server.
Of course, you have to know that a listserver exists in order join it
and if the admin is absent, good luck doing that. And, in most cases,
it is a single point of failure.
Usenet may seem to be dying, but for many things it is still the best
game in town.
Now, if we could just bring Usenet Email back to life and get rid of
that SPAM source, too.....
bill
--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
bill...@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include <std.disclaimer.h>
Peter Flass
>
> You could subscribe to news.individual.net for the paltry fee of 10 Euros
> per year. Well filtered for SPAM and carrying all the serious groups I
> know of.
I use news.eternal-september.org. It's free and I have had absolutely
no complaints over a period of several years.
>
> Of course, you have to know that a listserver exists in order join it
> and if the admin is absent, good luck doing that. And, in most cases,
> it is a single point of failure.
>
> Usenet may seem to be dying, but for many things it is still the best
> game in town.
The LISTSERV seems to see very little activity. If we wanted to have
something in addition to or instead of a newsgroup what would we do?
Please no one say Twitter!
Lou
<Peter...@Yahoo.com> wrote:
> The LISTSERV seems to see very little activity. If we wanted to
have
> something in addition to or instead of a newsgroup what would we
do?
> Please no one say Twitter!
Why not? Is Facebook better? In all fairness, most of the serious
technical microblog is in identi.ca ;)
Lou
Robin Vowels
> On 9/2/2011 10:22 AM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>
>
>
> > You could subscribe to news.individual.net for the paltry fee of 10 Euros
> > per year. Well filtered for SPAM and carrying all the serious groups I
> > know of.
>
> I use news.eternal-september.org. It's free and I have had absolutely
> no complaints over a period of several years.
How is it different or better than Usenet?
Robin Vowels
> In article <fca92c13-2b60-416b-bd5b-79f219a80...@z1g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
Are you saying that Usenet feed is still available?
as it has been for the past 30 years or so?
being capable of being read by MS Outlook Express?
While it is still there, nothing posted after 2nd August
appears via that feed here.
I've already said that Google (via googlegroups) provides a means
to view newsgroups, but it's all ham-fisted, much doesn't work,
and they do not deal with spam.
Just to look at, say, a half-dozen threads, requires trawling though
some 200 postings
at 10 per "page". It's virtually impossible to find anything older
than 10 days.
Peter Flass
I'm getting a regular newsfeed... If you're not getting news you should
contact your provider to see what's going on. I'm reading
eternal.september via Thunderbird, but I suppose outlook would work, if
you prefer the dark side.
Bill Gunshannon
Not sure what you mean by "Usenet feed" but News is USENET News
done over the INTERNET using NNTP instead of UUCP (although UUCP
is still available and works for those who might be interesteed.)
> as it has been for the past 30 years or so?
No reason why not. Even Linux still has UUCP.
> being capable of being read by MS Outlook Express?
Not being a Windows weeinie, I may be wrong, but I understand that
Outlook can do NNTP.
> While it is still there, nothing posted after 2nd August
> appears via that feed here.
That would be a problem with your provider. I am using NNTP and
Knews under BSD as my News reader here and, as you can see, the
articles are propogating just fine.
> I've already said that Google (via googlegroups) provides a means
> to view newsgroups, but it's all ham-fisted, much doesn't work,
> and they do not deal with spam.
Google groups is not USENET News. It is much more like the old Fido-Net
Gateway.
> Just to look at, say, a half-dozen threads, requires trawling though
> some 200 postings
> at 10 per "page". It's virtually impossible to find anything older
> than 10 days.
Then don't use it. I posted the name of my provider and, again, as
you can see, it works just fine. And, about the only time I see
SPAM is when some idiot posts a followup to it quoting the whole
thing.
10 Euros a year. I pay more than that every month just for beer.
Robin Vowels
> I'm getting a regular newsfeed... If you're not getting news you should
> contact your provider to see what's going on.
I did, 2 weeks ago. We spent an hour on it, without any change.