Re: Current and Future Computing Commission Issues

[David Brown <idbrown@mcmaster.ca>]

Dear Ton,

I suspect I am one of David W's political appointees to the Computing 
Commission as my name was added by the Executive Committee.  I believe 
the reason was to make sure that there was communication between the 
Commission and COMCIFS which they thought was in need of strengthening.  
I notice that MS97 at Florence is a Commission Microsymposium on 
programing for CIF and XML.  In the last week or two there has been some 
acitivity on the COMCIFS software developers discussion list stimulated 
by James Hester which indicates that there are people interested in 
advance programming for CIF.  It would make more sense if one of these 
people were to represent the CIF aspects of computing rather than me.  
Herbert Bernstein is another person with much experience in this area 
and I believe there are others such as John Westbrook with a wealth of 
experience in programming for mmCIF

I can understand Bill's concern to see more women active in the 
Commissions, but computing is not one of the areas that seems to attract 
women and I agree with David W that we need people who are active and 
not just there to make the numbers look good.  That said, the 
Commissions do traditionally make an effort to keep a broad geographical 
representation and it is important to maintain that breadth.  Commission 
members have to be able to function in English which immediately puts a 
bias in favour of AngloSaxon countries.  We need to hear the voices of 
other parts of the world even if it means passing over some excellent 
mainstream programmers from the UK or US.

In short, I am willing to retire from the Commission, but the new 
membership should include someone who has experience in advanced 
programing for CIF and XML.

Best wishes

David
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