[ANSI-Smalltalk] What's in a name?

[Paolo Bonzini]

>> I think Smalltalk Standard Project is much much more com pellling than
>> Smalltalk Sandards Project.  Please, just *one* standard.  I want an
>> accordion not a bunch of mouth organs in different keys...
> 
> The singular will surely be fine. But I rather liked the plural...why?
> 
> 1) I was imagining *multiple instances* of the class Smalltalk Standard 
> over the years... ST-80 ST-98 ST-2009 ST-2011 ST-2013.
> ==> As per Bruce's vision for the future.

That's multiple revisions of a single standard.

> 2) Also I was seeing *multiple vehicles* of the Smalltalk Standard... 
> open standard in community discussion, published ANSI, or whatever other 
> organisation that will take some money to put its label on a document.
> ==> Following the discussion/poll we just had.

Right.  But that doesn't mean that there is going to be more than one 
standard.

There are going to be multiple *processes*, that's for sure.  We could 
decide to name them, but they will remain under a single umbrella 
"Smalltalk Standard Project".  Even if the open process arose because of 
dissatisfaction with ANSI's mode of operation, it will still (and does 
in my draft) have explicit provision for incorporating its content into 
the ANSI standard.

> BTW, I also have this image that Ralph had something like idea number 3) 
> in mind when he envisioned the Smalltalk Standard Test Suite and started 
> Camp Smalltalk. That idea appealed a lot to many people. It still 
> appeals to me (and I would not be too interested in a Standard does does 
> not include an automatic testing track/component, like the (ANSI) ST-98 
> standard, which is simply a PDF).

While I agree with that, I will point out that this kind of conformance 
library is usually (for other ANSI standards at least) provided by 
separate vendors.  That's probably why the ANSI ST-98 standard was 
simply a PDF.

That said, my draft also specifies that test suites should be created 
for new proposed Smalltalk features.  (BTW please, I welcome comments on 
that draft!)

Paolo