Subject: SC 22 N 3559 - Proposal for Re-adoption of Withdrawn Standard (IS O 1538) and Simultaneous Transition to Stabilized Status

From: Matthew Deane <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2003 16:42:14 -0500

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22
Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces
Secretariat:  U.S.A.  (ANSI)
 
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 N3559
 
TITLE:
Proposal for Re-adoption of Withdrawn Standard (ISO 1538) and Simultaneous
Transition to Stabilized Status

DATE ASSIGNED:
2003-03-28
 	
SOURCE:
National Body of the Netherlands

BACKWARD POINTER:
SC 22 N3518
 
DOCUMENT TYPE:
National Body Contribution

PROJECT NUMBER:
 
STATUS:
Per SC 22 N 3518, SC 22 members were requested to send recommendations to
the SC 22 Secretariat for any standards that should be transitioned to
stabilized status.  The Netherlands has nominated ISO 1538:1984 -
Programming languages -- ALGOL 60, as a candidate.  The rationale is
provided below, as well as in the following:
http://www.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc22/def/n3559.pdf.
Unless objection to this action is received by 2003-05-01, this
recommendation will be forwarded to JTC 1 on behalf of SC 22.

ACTION IDENTIFIER:
COM
 
DUE DATE:
2003-05-01
  
DISTRIBUTION:
Text and PDF

CROSS REFERENCE:
 
DISTRIBUTION FORM:
Def
 
Address reply to:
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 Secretariat
Matt Deane
ANSI
25 West 43rd Street
New York, NY  10036
Telephone:  (212) 642-4992
Fax:             (212) 840-2298
Email:  [email-masked]

___end of cover page, beginning of document____

Netherlands Comment on Re-adoption of ISO 1538
(JTC1/SC22 N 3518)

The Netherlands NB proposes re-adoption of ISO 1538, Programming
Languages - Algol 60.

Considerations are the following, supported by documents, as required.

a.  ISO 1538 is stable, the final result of a development of 22 years
reached in 1984 (1)(3).

b.  ISO 1538 is referenced by a Swedish National Standard (2). Other
references are mentioned by authors, but are difficult to track,
because there is no duty to inform SC22 about referencing one of its
standards. However, many algorithms have been published in the
literature (4), that are still in use, or being discussed in textbooks.
To understand these, the rules of the language must be available.
Latin is no longer spoken, but a Latin text is incomprehensible
without resorting to its grammar, which must be kept in print to
that purpose (1).

(1) The programming language scene, ten years on.
    Paper 6: The Algol languages
    J.W. van Wingen
    Computer Standards and Interfaces 16 (1994) 465-467

(2) Programming language SIMULA, Swedish Standard SS 63 61 14
    0.3 REFERENCES (p. 3)
    1987-05-20

(3) JTC1/SC22 N 034, 135, 264, 395, 644, 684

(4) Communications of the ACM, Collected Algorithms
    (details will be supplied later on)