Proposals

["Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@C.CS.CMU.EDU>]

Proposals 1 - 4 are now in the hands of the technical committee.  We are
trying to work out a schedule for making decisions on these things.  All
I can say right now is that we'll move on these as quickly as we can.

Next, I think we want to continue the discussion of Pavel's proposed
changes to declaration scope.  I'll send out a message soon clarifying
what I think the proposal currently is.  Most people who have expressed
opinions so far so far seem to favor the proposal on its merits, and
several have said that they hate the existing rules.  The key question
now is whether anyone opposes this change, either on its merits or
because it would be too hard for them to implement.  (I don't think it
will break much existing user code, but I could be wrong.)  Speak now if
you want to oppose this change.  I said it would take near-unanimity to
make a change of this size, and that's what we've seen so far.

While we're considering this hard issue, I will send out a bunch of easy
(I hope) proposals culled from the list of issues Guy Steele passed out
at the Boston meeting last December.  Most of these were discussed on
the mailing list before December, and we seemed to agree on them at the
time, so my expectation is that few of these issues will result in fresh
controversy.  We'll see.

-- Scott