From rinehuls@access.digex.net Sat Aug 30 23:37:59 1997 Received: from ratatosk.DK.net (root@ratatosk.DK.net [193.88.44.22]) by dkuug.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA05110 for ; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 23:37:54 +0200 Received: from access4.digex.net (qlrhmEbBUV1EY@access4.digex.net [205.197.245.195]) by ratatosk.DK.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA18031 for ; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 23:37:36 +0200 Received: from localhost (rinehuls@localhost) by access4.digex.net (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP id RAA15185 for ; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 17:36:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 30 Aug 1997 17:36:10 -0400 (EDT) From: "william c. rinehuls" To: sc22docs@dkuug.dk Subject: SC22 N2576 - SC22 Chairman's Report for JTC 1 Plenary Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII __________________ beginning of title page ___________________________ ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces Secretariat: U.S.A. (ANSI) ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 N2576 TITLE: SC22 Chairman's Report for the September 1997 ISO/IEC JTC 1 Plenary DATE ASSIGNED: 1997-08-27 SOURCE: Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 BACKWARD POINTER: N/A DOCUMENT TYPE: N/A PROJECT NUMBER: N/A STATUS: N/A ACTION IDENTIFIER: FYI DUE DATE: N/A DISTRIBUTION: Text CROSS REFERENCE: N/A DISTRIBUTION FORM: Open Address reply to: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 Secretariat William C. Rinehuls 9457 Rushing Creek Court Springfield, VA 22153 USA Telephone: +1 (703) 912-9680 Fax: +1 (703) 912-2973 email: rinehuls@access.digex ___________________ end of cover page; beginning of report ____________ ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces Secretariat: U.S.A. (ANSI) Subcommittee 22 Chairman's Report on the JTC 1/SC 22 Plenary Meeting 18-22 August 1997 The tenth plenary meeting of JTC 1 Subcommittee 22 was held 18-22 August 1997 in Ottawa, Canada, eleven months after our previous plenary. This report will summarize the results of that meeting. We had a very successful meeting. Ten National Bodies were represented. Eleven of our fourteen working group conveners were present although all submitted Business Plans to the plenary. The plenary adopted 36 resolutions, not including those expressing appreciation. All except one were adopted unanimously. SC 22 took special note of the unexpected passing of Brian Meek in July. Brian was a pillar of programming language standardization activity and made many contributions to SC 22 both as a member and as head of the United Kingdom delegation. He will be sorely missed. SC 22 developed and approved a Business Plan for submission to JTC 1. The Business Plan includes general information on overall SC 22 scope, strategies, risks, opportunities and work program priorities, as well as specific work program details compiled from the Working Group Business Plans. The plenary extended the study period for the Java Study Group until the 1998 SC 22 plenary, with Dr. Robert Mathis continuing as convener. Since plans for Java-related standards are not yet firm, it appeared prudent to keep the study group in place at this time. No meetings are currently planned and the group will work electronically to the maximum extent possible. In addition, SC 22 appointed a liaison with SC 29 for coordinating Java-related standards and a liaison with ECMA TC39 for coordinating ECMAScript standards. In response to the "special action" recommendations from the Ad Hoc on Reengineering in JTC 1 N 4504 (and previously in N 4302 Revised), SC 22 developed and approved a work program review covering all programming languages with active development work. The Ad Hoc referred to "specialized, limited-use languages" but did not indicate which languages it felt were in this category. SC 22 therefore decided to present information on the market relevance of all of its programming language projects. SC 22 was also asked to review three projects that were originally submitted via the fast track process; this review is also included in our response document. In a separate document, SC 22 is submitting comments on the "late standards" list distributed by ITTF in JTC 1 N 4297. SC 22 endorsed the need for the Workshop on Cultural Adaptability and approved a timetable for development of SC 22 positions on workshop issues. The plenary named three delegates to represent SC 22 at the workshop. We also are requesting SC 2 to add three specific individuals to their Workshop Planning Committee as representatives from SC 22. SC 22 took note of the JTC 1 Policy on Electronic Document Distribution and the associated implementation timeline. The plenary developed and adopted a guideline document covering details of server-based distribution of SC 22 documents, for use by all SC 22 participants. This will be added to our list of SC 22 Standing Documents. SC 22 is particularly grateful to Mr. Keld Simonsen of Denmark and the Danish UNIX Users Group for their support in setting up and maintaining the SC 22 World Wide Web site for SC 22 documents, with appropriate access controls where required. We did, however, have considerable difficulty understanding one aspect of the JTC 1 policy. In the JTC 1 policy document (JTC 1 N 4761), there is a requirement in section 4.1 for JTC 1 approval where "standards documents may be prepared which utilize other formats" than those on the acceptable list. While SC 22 uses a variety of tools to prepare standards documents, in all cases SC 22 intends to produce documents in at least one of the acceptable formats. It was therefore unclear in what situations, if any, JTC 1 approval needs to be sought. A separate contribution requesting clarification was developed for submission to the Ad Hoc on Implementation of IT. SC 22 approved a request to JTC 1 to obtain permission for our working group on the Ada language to make publicly available Technical Corrigenda and Records of Responses documents regarding ISO/IEC 8652. SC 22 analyzed the new procedure for the maintenance of mature standards proposed by SC 21 in JTC 1 N 4353. While this procedure may be appropriate for SC 21, we found that it was far too complex for our needs in SC 22 and would entail considerable unnecessary overhead. This is not a new problem for us as we have had several cases where mature standards were developed by working groups that have since been disbanded. SC 22 developed and approved a short contribution to JTC 1 on this subject, recommending that subcommittees retain the flexibility to handle this maintenance in whatever manner is most effective for their standards. In order to expedite the standards development procedure in those cases where it is warranted, SC 22 authorized our Secretariat to conduct concurrent CD registration and CD letter ballots for three projects, and to conduct a concurrent PDTR registration and PDTR letter ballot for one other project. SC 22 also withdrew three projects (previously approved by project subdivision) as they were no longer justified. The PCTE project is expected to be completed during the next year. The term of office for the convener, Mr. Regis Minot, expired with the current plenary; it was extended until completion of the work at which time it is anticipated that the working group will be disbanded. Another convener, Mr. Jim Isaak of WG 15 on POSIX, completed his term of office and announced that he plans to retire from that position. He agreed to continue until a new convener can be identified and SC 22 extended his term on that basis. SC 22 maintains a five year meeting schedule and is pleased to report that we have host National Bodies identified for each year through 2002. The next SC 22 plenary is planned for 24-28 August 1998 in Copenhagen, Denmark. We are very concerned about the termination of support for the SC 22 Secretariat on 10 July 1998 as indicated in JTC 1 N 4808. Lack of support for the SC 22 Secretariat and Chairman would be very detrimental to our standards development work program. Robert H. Follett Chairman, JTC 1/SC 22 ________________________ end of SC22 N2576 ____________________________