I know you don't want to hear about standards yet again. That's been most or all of my focus for the last three editions of this Editor's Forum. The fact is, however, that I'm still finishing up the great mound of work I brought back from the meetings in Europe last July. My summer is a blur of committee haggles, persnickety edits, and eleventh-hour Fed-X drops. (And my income has dropped well below my outgo, at least for the summer months.)So let's talk about other matters. By now, the more perceptive among you may have noticed that The C Users Journal has indeed acquired a new Managing Editor. His name is Marc Briand and he has made the smoothest entrance of any Managing Editor I've worked with to date. Of course, the entire staff at R&D shares credit for that accomplishment. All those determined efforts to institutionalize procedures back in Lawrence, Kansas seem to be paying off.
By the time you read these words, I will have made my annual pilgrimage to Kansas and met Marc face to face. As of this writing, however, I haven't even spoken to the guy. We've managed to cooperate in putting out two issues of CUJ so far simply by exchanging electronic mail. Yes, I've been remiss in making the obvious courtesy call to welcome him aboard. (I did do so with an e-mail missive.) But that should tell you something about the effectiveness of an electronic workplace, once it's properly set up.
I have also been getting more and more proposals e-mailed direct to me. You should know that my immediate reaction is to forward such proposals to Marc. Until he logs them and sends a copy back to me for evaluation, I don't look close at any details. You can thus speed the review process, and save me a bit of busy work, by sending any proposals direct to Marc. His e-mail address for proposals and miscellaneous communication is marc@rdpub.com. Article proposals are always welcome from our readers.
The same general rule applies for letters to the editor. Here I face a more difficult issue. When I get e-mail from one of you readers, it's not always clear whether you want a personal reply or an answer printed in the Letters column of this magazine. If I guess wrong, you either miss out on a chance to get your letter published or you risk having private correspondence aired before the general public. You can be more sure of publication if you send your e-mail straight to CUJ. Send letters to cujed@rdpub.c. You can be more sure of privacy if you indicate your desire in any mail you send me. But do keep those cards and letters, electronic and otherwise, coming in.
There, that was much better than hearing about standards again, wasn't it?
P.J. Plauger
pjp@plauger.com