Subject: N 4080-Business Plan and Convenor's Report for WG 19

From: Sally Seitz <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 15:48:28 -0400

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 
Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces 

Secretariat:  U.S.A.  (ANSI) 

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 N4080 

TITLE: 
Business Plan and Convenor's Report for WG 19 
  
DATE ASSIGNED: 
2006-07-14 
  
SOURCE: 
WG 19 Convenor (R. Scowen) 
  
BACKWARD POINTER: 
  
DOCUMENT TYPE: 
Officer's Contribution 

PROJECT NUMBER: 

STATUS: 
This document is circulated for review and consideration.  It will be
discussed at the September 2006 SC 22 Plenary in London under agenda item
8.4.  This document is located at:
http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/def/n4079.htm 

ACTION IDENTIFIER: 

ACT 

DUE DATE: 
N/A 

DISTRIBUTION: 
Text

CROSS REFERENCE: 

DISTRIBUTION:
def 

Sally Seitz
Program Manager
American National Standards Institute
25 West 43rd Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10036
Tel: 212 642 4918
Fax: 212 840 2298

__________________end of cover page, beginning of
document___________________________
BUSINESS PLAN AND CONVENER'S REPORT

ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG19
(FORMAL DEFINITION LANGUAGES)

PERIOD COVERED
August 2005 - July 2006

SUBMITTED BY:
R S Scowen
(ISO/IEC JTC1 SC22 WG19 Convener)
9 Birchwood Grove, Hampton, Middlesex
United Kingdom     TW12 3DU
Tel: +44 (0)20 8979 7429
E-mail: (1) [email-masked] 
(2) [email-masked]

14 July 2006

1. MANAGEMENT SUMMARY

1.1 JTC1/SC22/WG19 Statement of Scope
Development of ISO/IEC standards related to formal development notations and
methods.

1.2 Project report

1.2.1 Completed projects
JTC1.22.29.01 -- ISO/IEC 13817-1 Vienna Development Method/Specification
Language - Part 1: Base Language: ISO/IEC 13817-1 was published in 1996.  So
far, no major problems have been reported.
JTC1.22.14977 -- ISO/IEC 14997 Syntactic metalanguage - Extended BNF:
ISO/IEC 14977 was published in 1996.  So far, no major problems have been
reported.
JTC1.22.45 -- ISO/IEC 13568 Z Notation: ISO/IEC 13568 was published in 2002.

1.2.2 Projects underway
None.

1.2.3 Projects withdrawn
None.

1.3 Cooperation and competition
WG19 has always tried to cooperate with the whole formal development methods
community.  Where appropriate, WG19 has established contact with other SC22
working groups. There is no direct competition with any other efforts.

2.0 PERIOD REVIEW

2.1 Market requirements
Formal development methods have often been developed in academia.
Standardization will give credibility to their work, and encourage their
tuition and future developments to be built on sound and common foundations.

2.2 Achievements
ISO/IEC 13817-1:1996 (VDM, Base language).
ISO/IEC 13568:2002 (Z notation).
ISO/IEC 14977:1996 (Syntactic metalanguage - Extended BNF).
The Z standardization web site is at: 
http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~ian/zstan/

2.3 Resources
The WG19 mailing list includes experts from Denmark, France, Japan,
Netherlands, New Zealand, United Kingdom, & USA. The mailing list is being
checked to ensure that details are up-to-date, that members remain
interested, and identify any new techniques and notations that are worth
standardizing.

3.0 FOCUS NEXT WORK PERIOD
For the upcoming work period, WG19's main task will be to deal with any
maintenance required for the standards for which it is responsible. 
Ian Toyn has prepared defect reports for Z, and expects to submit for
balloting shortly a Draft Technical Corrigendum. 

3.1 Deliverables
None 

3.2 Strategies
WG19 has two principal strategies: (1) technical excellence, and (2) liaison
with all interested parties

3.2.1 Risks
Not applicable.

3.2.2 Opportunities
Not applicable.

3.3 Work Program Priorities
Not applicable.

4. OTHER ITEMS
This section lists other items that are not part of the "Business Plan" but
are appropriate for the "Convener's Report".

4.1 Possible action requests for SC22 Plenary
See section 5.

4.2 WG19 Liaisons
No formal liaisons.

4.3 Convener and Project Editors
Roger Scowen is the convener of WG19, and Ian Toyn is deputy convener.
The following individuals have been appointed project editors:
JTC1.22.29.01 -- Vienna Development Method, Derek Andrews
JTC1.22.45    -- Z notation, Ian Toyn (deputy: Susan Stepney)
JTC1.22.14977 -- Extended BNF, Roger Scowen.

4.4 Electronic document distribution
As far as possible, discussions and decisions within the working group are
taken using e-mail.

4.5 Recent meetings
None.

4.6 Future meetings
No future meetings are currently planned.

5 DRAFT RESOLUTIONS FOR SC22
JTC 1/SC 22 approves the following Working Group Convener re-appointments:
*	Roger Scowen (UK), WG 19 - Formal Definition Languages 
	
	JTC 1/SC 22 notes that formal definition notations and techniques
can beneficially be applied in many International Standards and thereby
improve their precision and avoid unintentional ambiguity. JTC 1/SC 22
therefore recommends that the following JTC 1/SC 22 standard be made freely
available via the ISO On-Line Store for the benefit of all standardizers: 
*	ISO/IEC 13817-1:1996 - Programming languages, their environments and
system software interfaces -- Vienna Development Method -- Specification
Language -- Part 1: Base language.

Note that this notation and development method, before standardization was
complete, was used in ISO 8731-2:1987 Banking -- Approved algorithm for
message authentication -- Part 2: Message authenticator algorithms.

------ End of 2006 WG19 report to SC22 --------

R S Scowen, Guest worker
(roger.scowen at npl.co.uk)
National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, Middlesex, UK. TW11 0LW