Subject: SC22 N2543 - WG19 Business Plan and Conveners Report - PLENARY AGENDA ITEM

From: "william c. rinehuls" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 12:10:28 -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
N2543

August 1997

TITLE:
WG19 Business Plan and WG19 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 and Business Plan will be considered under
Agenda Item 8.11 at the August 1997 SC22 Plenary.

CROSS REFERENCE:
N/A

DOCUMENT TYPE:
Business Plan and 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]

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BUSINESS PLAN AND CONVENER'S REPORT:
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG19 (Formal Methods)

PERIOD COVERED:
SEPTEMBER 1996 -- AUGUST 1997

SUBMITTED BY:
Derek Andrews (ISO/IEC JTC1 WG19 Convener)
Department of Mathematics & Computer Science
University of Leicester
University Road
Leicester

Email: [email-masked]
Tel  : +44 116 252 3401

Management Summary
__________________

1.1 JTC1/SC22/WG22 Statement of Scope

WG22 is responsible for formal methods and formal languages. It is currently
responsible for the specification language VDM-SL, the specification language Z
and the syntactic metalanguage.

1.2 General Statement

Most of the work of WG19 is carried out by the two Rapporteur Groups: VDM and
Z. However, some issues are covered jointly.

The Working Group is now responsible for the syntactic matalanguage project
which at present involves the maintenance of the Standard (ISO/IEC 14977).  It
should be noted that the BSI version of this Standard was used in conjunction
with VDM-SL in the definition of Modula-2 in the appropriate ISO Standard, and
was also used to describe the concrete syntax of VDM-SL. It should be noted
that this Standard describes a standard metalanguage for describing the syntax
of programming language, the language is based on BNF.

At this time, there were no meetings of the full Working Group in 1997.

Planned Meetings in 96--97:

September 1998 (exact date to be fixed)

The reports of the two Rapporteur Groups follow.

VDM-SL Rapporteur Group
_______________________

1. Management Summary

1.1 JTC1/SC22/WG22 VDM-SL Statement of Scope

This rapporteur group is responsible for the VDM-SL Standard and related
activities.

1.2 Project Report

1.2.1 Completed Projects

The group has completed work on part 1 of the VDM-SL Standard which was
published in December 1996.

1.2.2 Projects Underway

The rapporteur group will continue its work on this project by setting up a
mechanism to consider corrections and how a technical corrigendum will be made
available (if and as necessary).

Work on Part II of the Standard continues, a review of the various approaches
was completed and a work plan constructed (see below).

1.2.3 Cancelled Projects

There are no cancelled projects.

1.2.4 Cooperation and Competition

The WG19-VDM group involves collaborative work of six participating P-members:
UK, Denmark, Holland, France, Japan and the USA. The Standardization work was
also supported by the EU by various grants.

There are no competative ativities.

2.0 Period Review

2.1 Market Requirements

The increase in the need for safety-critical systems will imply increased
interest in formal languages.

In last year's report it was stated that the main task of the VDM-SL working
group (apart from routine maintenance of the Standard) was the production of
part 2 of the Standard which is concerned with the introduction of some sort of
modularisation. In the previous report from this group, the possibility of
adding an Object Oriented Structure to VDM-SL. The work to date by members of
the VDM-SL working group has identified that a way forward is to adopt as part
of this new Standard the work accomplished by a European group working in this
area.

2.2 Achievements

Documents describing the proposed extensions were distributed in October 1997.

2.3 Resources

A proposal has been submitted to the European Commission for support of the
next phase of the Standardisation work --- an answer is expected either by the
beginning of September 1997.

3.0 Focus for Next Work Period

The work plan for the project to produce Part II of the VDM-SL Standard consists
of the following three major tasks:

- task 1 : The OO structuring

This is concerned with adding classes and related constructs to VDM-SL so that
it can support the specification of Object Oriented systems.

 - task 2 : The parallel features

The semantics of objects are such that in specifications, if an execution model
is used to provide informal semantics, they require `concurrency'. Thus
parallel features need to be considered for the model to be as general as
possible.

- task 3 : The Real time features

An OO specification must have a interpretation that allows concurrency, thus a
possible refinement is to preserve the parallelism inherent in an OO
specification, this implies that real-time features should be added as part of
this effort.

There is a possible additional task 4: VDM refinement rules and their proof
could be included if the progress on the other topics progresses quickly ---
this was always part of the Standardisation effort.

3.1 Deliverables

The deliverables time schedule:

task code  description                             completed

task 1.1   OO structuring committee draft          end 1997

task 1.2   Static semantics of OO structuring      end 1998

task 2.1   Parallel language constructs cie draft  mid 1998

task 2.2   Semantics in RTL                        end 1998

task 3.1   Real Time committee draft               end 1998

task 3.2   Semantics in RTL                        mid 1999

This estimate is based on the assumption that the current documents resulting
from the European group's work (Afrodite project) will be reused to large
extent. We envisage that several intermediate versions of the documents will be
necessary to come to the committee draft.

>From the very start the documents will be written in the ISO standard format.
There will be 3 major versions for each part --- these will be handled
electronically were appropriate.

All documents will be checked by the VDM++ toolbox (this tool supports Standard
VDM-SL together with OO extensions) --- this will ensure consistency.

3.2 Strategies

A mechanism for dealing with defect reports against the VDM-SL Standard will be
put in place as and when necessary (non have occured at this time).

For Part II of the Standard, build on existing work by the APHRODITE group
where ever possible.

3.2.1 Risks

Lack of EC funding could cause a delay in the above work schedule.

3.2.2 Opportunities

3.3 Work Program Priorities

Tasks 1.1 and 1.2 of the work-plan

4 Other Items

4.1 Possible Action Requests at Forthcoming Plenary

To continue work on Part II of the Standard

4.2 Project Editor

Derek Andrews to continue as project editor.

4.3 Electronic Document Distribution

Nearly all work is of this subgroup is carried out by Email, it is intended to
continue this.

It is planned that future documents will be available at a Web Site for both
the working group, this rapporteur group (and the Z rapporteur group), linked to
the appropriate ISO web pages. At present FTP of working documents are
available, but only within the rapporteur group --- this will be extended with
appropriate access control mechanisms.

4.4 Recent Meetings

All work has been carried out by Email, meetings planned for next year to
review work on Part II of the Standard.

4.5 Future Meetings

(Electronic) meeting in October --- date to be fixed.

Z Rapporteur Group
__________________

1. Management Summary

1.1 JTC1/SC22/WG22 Z Notation Statement of Scope

This rapporteur group is responsible for the Z Notation Standard and related
activities.

1.2 Project Report

1.2.1 Completed Projects

The group has completed work on almost all the comments raised against the
first CD.

1.2.2 Projects Underway

The group continues to redraft the CD submitted in September 1995 in line with
comments received.

1.2.3 Cancelled Projects

There are no cancelled projects.

1.2.4 Cooperation and Competition

The work of the group involves that participation of members from the UK, USA,
Australia, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Brazil, Canada, and Ireland. Members
are drawn from industry, government, and universities. The standardization work
has been assisted by grants from industrial and government agencies in the USA
and Europe.

There are no competitive activities.

2.0 Period Review

2.1 Market Requirements

The increasing interest in safety-critical systems and in secure systems
suggests a continuing interest in the use of the Z notation.  Industrial users
of the Z notation continue to exert pressure for a standard, and contribute
their people's time to the work.

2.2 Achievements

Theoretical papers addressing comments on the draft CD have been produced by
members of the group, and agreed as the basis of the next draft.

2.3 Resources

Further funding for the project editor is being sought from industrial and other
sources.

3.0 Focus for Next Work Period

The work plan for the project is to produce a revised version of the Committee
Draft submitted in September 1995, and accepted subject to comments. The new
draft will take account of the submitted comments.  The group hopes that the
second draft will be able to proceed to Draft International Standard status
with a minimum of amendment. The breakdown is as follows:

Task 1.1: To prepare draft revisions of the clauses of the CD, based on the
theoretical work done by the group over the last two years. (Project editor and
individual writers)

Task 1.2: To review the draft clauses and comment on them. (Technical experts
in the group)

Task 2.1: To prepare proposals for changes to the drafts. (Technical experts in
the group)

Task 2.2: To review the proposals and agree which proposals are to be accepted.
(Whole group)

Task 2.3: To implement the changes. (Project editor and individual writers)

3.1 Deliverables

A revised CD by 1 April 1998.

3.2 Strategies

The project editor and a small team of writers to prepare draft clauses. The
technical experts to review the drafts. The technical experts to prepare
proposals on the basis of the drafts. The group to review and accept proposals.

3.2.1 Risks

Lack of funding for the project editor could cause delays in the work schedule.

3.2.2 Opportunities

3.3 Work Program Priorities

The tasks have been listed in priority order.

4 Other Items

4.1 Possible Action Requests at Forthcoming Plenary

To continue work on the revision of the CD of September 1995.

4.2 Project Editor

John Nicholls is to continue as project editor.

4.3 Electronic Document Distribution

Some of the work of the group is carried out by e-mail. LaTeX is used to
prepare and communicate drafts and technical papers. Working papers are stored
as PostScript files on an FTP server, and members retrieve them from the server
as they need them. There is a private ftp server for group memebers only.

4.4 Recent Meetings

Since September 1996, meetings have been held in the UK as follows:

November 5 1996 at IBM Hursley Park
January 28 1997 at Logica Cambridge
May 20 1997 at Praxis Critical Systems, Bath

4.5 Future Meetings

Meetings are planned as follows:

September 22 1997 at BSI headquarters, London
November 25 1997 at a venue to be decided
January 1998 on a date and at a venue to be decided
March 1998 on a date and at a venue to be decided.

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