From owner-sc22docs@dkuug.dk Tue Sep 2 16:35:10 2003 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by dkuug.dk (8.12.8p1/8.9.2) id h82EZAI3090241 for sc22docs-domo; Tue, 2 Sep 2003 16:35:10 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from owner-sc22docs@dkuug.dk) X-Authentication-Warning: ptah.dkuug.dk: majordom set sender to owner-sc22docs@dkuug.dk using -f Received: from email1.ansi.org ([12.15.192.5]) by dkuug.dk (8.12.8p1/8.9.2) with ESMTP id h82EZ0Cp090233 for ; Tue, 2 Sep 2003 16:35:06 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from mdeane@ansi.org) Received: by EMAIL1 with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) id ; Tue, 2 Sep 2003 10:24:11 -0400 Message-ID: From: Matthew Deane To: "'SC 22 Distribution List'" Subject: SC 22 N 3637 - SC 22/WG 3 Business Plan/Convener's Report Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 10:24:08 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-sc22docs@dkuug.dk Precedence: bulk ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces Secretariat: U.S.A. (ANSI) ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 N3637 TITLE: SC 22/WG 3 Business Plan/Convener's Report DATE ASSIGNED: 2003-09-02 SOURCE: SC 22/WG 3 Convenor (L. Dickey) BACKWARD POINTER: N/A DOCUMENT TYPE: Other document (Open) PROJECT NUMBER: STATUS: As this document was received after the 15 August deadline, it will be reviewed at the upcoming SC 22 Plenary under Agenda Item 8.1 pending approval for addition to the agenda. ACTION IDENTIFIER: FYI DUE DATE: N/A DISTRIBUTION: Text CROSS REFERENCE: DISTRIBUTION FORM: Open Matt Deane ANSI 25 West 43rd Street New York, NY 10036 Telephone: (212) 642-4992 Fax: (212) 840-2298 Email: mdeane@ansi.org __end of cover page, beginning of report____ ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG3 - Programming Language APL WG3 Business Plan and Convener's Report to the ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 2003 Plenary Period covered by this report: August 2002 to August 2003. Date of preparation: August, 2003 Submitted by: Prof. Leroy J Dickey Convener, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 3 Faculty of Mathematics University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario Canada N2L 3G1 E-mail: ljdickey@uwaterloo.ca 1. MANAGEMENT SUMMARY 1.1 JTC1/SC22/WG-3 Statement of Scope Development and maintenance of ISO/IEC Standards related to programming language APL 1.2 Project Report 1.2.1 Completed Projects JTC 1.22.09.01 Programming Language APL, ISO/IEC 8485:1989 JTC 1.22.24.01 Programming Language Extended APL, IS 13751 1.2.2 Projects Underway JTC 1.22.09.02 Character Repertoire for APL intended for inclusion with ISO/IEC 8485 JTC 1.22.24.02 Character Repertoire for Extended APL intended for inclusion with IS 13751 Both of these project have passed the DIS phase and final copy is now being prepared. Delivery is expected by the end of October. 1.2.3 Canceled Projects None 1.3 Cooperation and Competition There are no competing standards for APL. The international standards 8485 and 13751 stand out as the primary references for APL implementers. The Unicode Consortium kindly granted use of graphic images which we have included with the APL Character Repertoire. 2. PERIOD REVIEW 2.1 Market Requirements APL is a general purpose computing language that excels at applications that benefit by the organization of data in large arrays and has found users in a wide range of applications involving financial, actuarial, manufacturing, and many phases of management. Outside the insurance industry, one of the major groups of users is in the management and use of large financial data sets, such as, for example, stock trading history. Both APL and some of its derivatives are successfully used here. Another group of APL users uses optimization algorithms to solve scheduling problems for the transportation of people and goods. One specialized use is in assemblyline control for the manufacture of disk drives. Though the running of this particular task does not exploit what some consider to be strongest points of APL, it does illustrate the broad scope of applicability. One recent niche applications that does exploit such strengths have appeared as an integrating part of a popular large-business management system. One major financial house (Morgan Stanley) developed a dialect of APL for their own internal use. This subset, called A+, is tuned to their trading needs. It is now publically available. Other specialized subsets and variations of APL called K and Kdb have appeared and are replacing some popular general purpose data base programs. These highly specialized tools are little known, outside their sphere of application. The vendor of another APL variation called J is enjoying some popularity now, and has won some APL users who think that J may replace APL. However, there is currently only one J vendor, and the need for a standard is questionable. One amazing industry practice is illustrated by a major developer who has a client requiring software written in programming language Ada. Because of the advantages of offered by modeling in APL, development is done in the higher level language and translated to Ada for before delivery. 2.2 Achievements The APL Working Group is proud to report that the projects JTC 1.22.09.01 Programming Language APL JTC 1.22.24.01 Programming Language Extended APL have resulted in high quality works that stand out as the primary authority for APL implementors and programmers. Likewise, the projects JTC 1.22.09.02 Character Repertoire for APL JTC 1.22.24.02 Character Repertoire for Extended APL have already made a positive impact on the SCAR project, since the APL Character Repertoire provides a foundation for the identification of all special symbols used in APL programming, and provides the basis for transfer of information between differing APL implementations. 2.3 Resources The working group WG3 meets as needed, usually once a year in conjunction with the annual APL Programing Language Conference sponsored by The Special Interest Group for APL, a member group of the Association for Computing Machinery. This conjunction has greatly aided the assembly of experts. However, for many APL experts, the most exciting part of the standards work is over because the most interesting technical decisions have been made. Examples of these are the brilliant specialized functions such as "fuzzy floor", and ever useful "domino" functions for instance, which played a major role in ISO 8485 and the more recently introduced items in IS 13751, such as (i) the rank operator for arrays, (ii) the box and enclose functions and (iii) the representation of complex numbers and the all important value of (-1) raised to the power (n/k). As a consequence we have experienced a decline in interest and participation. Candidates for project editors are scarce. 3. FOCUS for the NEXT WORK PERIOD 3.1 Deliverables The final text of the APL Character Repertoire in HTML and PDF format is imminent. 3.2 Strategies 3.2.1 Risks In adition to the phenomenon mentioned above in the second paragraph of section "2.3 Resources", a point of contention is that some of the world's leading APL experts, in some instances previously members of WG3, have suffered from barriers to official participation by their respective national bodies. It is my view that qualified experts who volunteer their time should be encouraged rather than turned away for pecuniary reasons. 3.2.2 Opportunities There is need for a new standard for moving data between APL applications and applications running in other languages. Several APL vendors have cooperated in the implementation of a "Self Contained Array Representation" (SCAR). There is need and interest in the development of this idea, and it it ripe for standardization. SCAR developers claim that they can use this scheme to communicate not only between sessions of different implementations of APL but also with applications running in other languages. As a side note, the APL Character Repertoire has aided in this effort, even though the APL Character Repertoire is not yet a published standard. 3.3 Work Program Priorities 3.3.1 First priority: Deliver APL Character Repertoire 3.3.2 Second priority: Explore feasibility of a new project on Self Contained Array Representation. 3.3.3 Third priority: WG3, the APL Working Group, will continue into a maintenance mode for the two standards APL (8485) and APL Extended (13751) and will stand prepared to answer questions and provide interpretation and prepare corrigenda, if needed. 4. Other Items 4.1 Action Requests for WG3 4.1.1 Renew ISO/IEC 8485, when it is time to do so. 4.1.2 Renew IS 13751, when it is time to do so. 4.1.3 New Project: Self Contained Array Specification 4.2 WG3 Meetings Currently by electronic mail 4.3 Most Recent face-to-face Meeting Berlin, 2000-07-23. 4.4 Future Meetings Future meetings will continue by electronic mail, at the least. No face-to-face meetings are scheduled at this time. ----- end of convenor's report and business plan -----