[Dwarf-Discuss] constants updates, minor DWARF standard upgrade?

[Michael Eager]

On 07/20/2012 12:56 PM, Frank Ch. Eigler wrote:
> Hi -
>
> On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 12:53:55PM -0700, Michael Eager wrote:
>> [...]
>> The DWARF Committee does give any assurances that any proposal will be
>> accepted, or that any proposal will be accepted without modification.
>> [...]
>
> That makes sense.
>
>> As Ian mentioned, when I indicated "Should be OK", that is not an
>> assurance that the assignment of a value for DW_LANG_Go would be
>> accepted as proposed, only that I thought that it was likely.  [...]
>
> Would the committee consider a faster-track number-assignment process,
> kind of like IANA, for proposals that do not constitute material
> structural changes to DWARF, but mere non-conflicting assignment of
> magic numbers?

We don't want to have competing and conflicting standards procedures.
We have a simple low-overhead standards process.  Adding a fast-track
process would increase the complexity and increase overhead (i.e., my
time), and might lead to the awkward situation where the fast-track
consideration of a proposal and a more deliberative one disagree.

A proposal which has been approved by the committee (as shown on our
website) has a very high likelihood of being incorporated into the
released standard as written.  That's not a guarantee, though.

We encourage people to use the DWARF extension facility whenever possible,
rather than trying to anticipate future specifications.

-- 
Michael Eager	 eager at eagercon.com
1960 Park Blvd., Palo Alto, CA 94306  650-325-8077