Subject: SC22 N2538 - WG11 Convener's Report for August SC22 Plenary

From: "william c. rinehuls" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 1997 12:09:57 -0400 (EDT)

___________________ 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
N2538

August 1997

TITLE:
WG11 Convener's Report for the August 1997 JTC 1/SC22 Plenary

SOURCE:
Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22

WORK ITEM:
N/A

STATUS:
Please note that this Report will be considered under Agenda Item 8.5 at
the August 1997 SC22 Plenary.

CROSS REFERENCE:
N/A

DOCUMENT TYPE:
Convener's Report

ACTION:
To SC22 Member Bodies for review.

Address reply to:
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 Secretariat
William C. Rinehuls
8457 Rushing Creek Court
Springfield, VA 22153 USA
Tel:  +1 (703) 912-9680
Fax:  +1 (703) 912-2973
email:  [email-masked]

_________________end of title page; beginning of report _____________

                WG11 Convener report to SC22, July 1997       

1.  Introduction

The last year has been a sad and difficult period for WG11 as two of its
driving forces, Mary Payne and Brian Meek, have passed away.

Mary was the only remaining editor of the original project editor team for
the Language Independent Arithmetic documents.	After she had been ill for
some time, she retired from Digital (and the editorship) in March 1997, and
died, one week after her husband, in June 1997.
Mary has made major contributions to the field of numerical analysis and
was a stimulating participant in WG11.

Brian Meek can be considered to be the father of WG11: he has been the
major supporter, defender and stimulator of the work on language
independent activities in SC22, the UK National Body and of course, right
from the start, in WG11.  His last major activity was the preparation of
the draft on Language Independent Service Specifications, which was very
close to his heart.  WG11 will never be the same without him.

2.  WG11 Participation

The WG11 meeting, planned for July 1997, was postponed because of lack of
participation: only 5 persons were expected to participate during all of
the meeting (from the US, the UK, Japan, Sweden and the Netherlands).  No
new meeting date has been established yet.

There were two important issues on the agenda: the review of the comments
received on the LIA-2 FCD ballot and the review of possible comments
received from SC22 NBs on WDTR 14369 - LISS.

The LIA-2 ballot resulted in three negative votes: from Japan, Germany and
the US.
The German and US comments are almost identical; however, Germany was not
planning to attend the meeting and the US representative had not
participated in (nor was informed about) the US vote.  Therefore, it would
have been impossible for WG11 to know what the German and US reaction on
certain resolutions of the comments would have been, making the work of the
understaffed WG11 even harder.

WG11 invites SC22 to urge NBs to ensure that, if a NB has an extensive No
vote on a SC22 ballot, that then this NB is properly represented at the
resolution meeting.

3.  Work Item JTC1.22.16 - Common Procedure Calling Mechanism

This project is finalized: the document is published as
ISO/IEC 13886:1996.

4.  Work Item JTC1.22.17 - Language Independent Datatypes

This project is finalized: the document is to be published as
ISO/IEC 11404:1996.

5.  Work Item JTC1.22.28 - Language Independent Arithmetic, Part 1

This project is finalized: the document is published as ISO/IEC 10967-
1:1994.

6.  Work Item JTC1.22.33 - Language Independent Arithmetic, Part 2

The FCD was distributed for ballot.  The results were 10 yes votes without
comment, 1 yes vote with comments, 3 no votes (Japan, Germany and the US),
4 abstaining and 5 NBs not voting.  Although this is seemingly a good
result, the fact that 2 NBs that are active in WG11 have submitted a NO
vote is a matter of concern.  WG11 will discuss the results during its next
meeting.

At the moment that Mary Payne indicated that she no longer could be active
as project editor, a request for a new project editor was issued to WG11.
It is most likely that Mr. Kent Karlsson will be nominated by Sweden to
become the new project editor.	WG11 supports this possible nomination.

7.  Work Item JTC1.22.34 - Language Independent Arithmetic, Part 3

The work on this part of IS 10967 (on complex arithmetic and procedures)
will follow (in time) the work on part 2,

8.  Language Independent Service Specifications

Brian Meek had prepared a draft of this document for SC22 review and
comments (SC22/N2470).	No comments were received on this document.

It was WG11's intention to discuss comments received during the meeting,
and then (based on the comments received) decide whether the document was
fit for submission for a PDTR ballot.  As no comments were received, WG11
would like to get from SC22 an indication whether such a submission would
get substantial support from the SC22 NBs.
It should also be noted that, if extensive changes are needed to the
document, a new project editor should be found (minor changes can be made
by the convener).

9.  Liaisons

Liaisons exist with the following SC22 WGs: WG2 - Pascal, WG3 - APL, WG4 -
COBOL, WG9 - Ada, WG14 - C, WG15 - POSIX, WG20 - Internationalization and
WG22 - PCTE.  Also, liaison representatives from SC24 (Graphics) and SC26
(Micro Processors) to WG11 have been appointed.

Informal liaisons also exists with SC22/WG13 - Modula-2, SC22/WG17 - Prolog
and SC2 - Characters.

10.  Contact points

Drs. Willem Wakker
	  ACE Consulting bv
	  Van Eeghenstraat 100
	  1071 GL AMSTERDAM
	  Nederland
Phone:	  +31	20 6646416
Fax:	  +31	20 6750389
Email:	  [email-masked]
Remark:   Convener SC22/WG11

Mr. Paul Rabin
	  Open Software Foundation
	  11 Cambridge Center
	  Cambridge MA 02142
	  U.S.A.
Phone:	  +1	617 621 8873
Fax:	  +1	617 621 0584
Remark:   Liaison with SC22/WG15 - POSIX

Mr. Tom Turba
	  Unisys Corporation
	  P.O. Box 64942
	  St. Paul MN 55164-0942
	  U.S.A.
Phone:	  +1	612 635 6774
Fax:	  +1	612 635 3899
Email:	  [email-masked]
Remark:   Liaison with SC22/WG2 - Pascal

Dr. Eke van Batenburg
	  RUL, Instituut voor Theoretische Biologie
	  Kaiserstraat 63
	  2311 GP LEIDEN
	  Nederland
Phone:	  +31	71 274900
Fax:	  +31	71 274972
Email:	  [email-masked]
Remark:   Liaison with SC22/WG3 - APL

Mr. Donald Nelson
	  Tandem Computers Inc.
	  5425 Stevens Creek Blvd.
	  Santa Clara CA 95051-7200
	  U.S.A.
Phone:	  +1	408 285 5203
Fax:	  +1	408 285 5245
Remark:   Liaison with SC22/WG4 - COBOL

Mr. Bill Carlson
	  Intermetrics Inc.
	  733 Concord Ave.
	  Cambridge MA 02138
	  U.S.A.
Phone:	  +1	617 661 1840
Fax:	  +1	617 868 2843
Email:	  [email-masked]
Remark:   Liaison with SC22/WG9 - ADA

Mr. Keld Simonsen
	  DKnet/DS
	  Sankt Joergens Alle 8
	  DK-1615 COPENHAGEN V
	  Denmark
Phone:	  +45	3917 9944
Fax:	  +45	3120 8948
Email:	  [email-masked]
Remark:   Liaison with SC22/WG14 - C and SC22/WG20 Internationalization

Mr. Christof Blum
	  Fraunhofer-Computer Graphics Research Group
	  Wilhelminenstr. 7
	  W-6100 DARMSTADT
	  Germany
Phone:	  +49	6151 155 145
Fax:	  +49	6151 155 194
Remark:   Liaison with SC24 - Computer Graphics

Dr. Richard Karpinski
	  University of California San Francisco
	  U-76
	  San Francisco CA 94143-0704
	  U.S.A.
Phone:	  +1	415 476 4529
Remark:   Liaison with SC26 - Micro Processors

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