From rinehuls@access.digex.net Mon Aug 11 18:48:58 1997 Received: from access4.digex.net (qlrhmEbBUV1EY@access4.digex.net [205.197.245.195]) by dkuug.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id SAA13640 for ; Mon, 11 Aug 1997 18:48:56 +0200 Received: from localhost (rinehuls@localhost) by access4.digex.net (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP id MAA11805 for ; Mon, 11 Aug 1997 12:48:53 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 12:48:52 -0400 (EDT) From: "william c. rinehuls" To: sc22docs@dkuug.dk Subject: SC22 N2549 - WG4 Business Plan and Conveners Report - PLENARY ITEM 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 N2549 August 1997 TITLE: WG4 Business Plan and WG4 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 8.2 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: rinehuls@access.digex.net ________________ end of title page; beginning of report _________________ BUSINESS PLAN AND CONVENOR'S REPORT FOR ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 4 - COBOL PERIOD COVERED: September 1996 - July 1997 SUBMITTED BY: Ann Wallace Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 4 IBM DZ6/E22 P.O. Box 49023 San Jose, CA 95161-9023 Phone: +1 408 463-4344 Fax: +2 408 463-2425 Email: AnnWallace@us.ibm.com 1.0 MANAGEMENT SUMMARY 1.1 JTC 1/SC 22/WG 4 STATEMENT OF SCOPE The development and maintenance of ISO/IEC standards for programming language COBOL. 1.2 PROJECT REPORT 1.2.1 COMPLETED PROJECTS None 1.2.2 PROJECTS UNDERWAY 22.01.07 Revision of ISO 1989:1985 -- Combined CD registration and CD ballots (N2260) closed in January 1997. Along with 4 negative votes on the CD ballot, a large number of substantive comments were referred to WG4 for resolution in N2383, Summary of Voting. As a result, the draft will be substantially changed by removal, addition, and modification of features. The overall result will be simplification and, most notably, the COBOL class library will be removed with an intent to publish it as a technical report. A substantial number of technical and editorial corrections will be made. The response to comments is nearing completion and is expected to be forwarded to SC22 in September 1997. A revised draft will be prepared and forwarded to SC22 for Final CD ballot in accordance with the following schedule: Stage Description Date 3.1 Initiate final CD 4/1999 4.1 Initiale DIS 4/2000 5.0 IS 8/2000 1.2.3 MAINTENANCE ACTIVITIES N2310, Record of Response Issue 3, containing records of response for Defect Reports 62 through 81 for ISO/IEC 1989:1985 was approved by SC22 in March 1997. There are currently no Defect Reports open in WG4. 1.2.4 CANCELLED PROJECTS None 1.2.5 COOPERATION AND COMPETITION WG4 cooperates closely with NCITS COBOL Technical Committee J4, to whom SC22 has delegated the technical development and maintenance of COBOL, WG4 works closely with the X/Open COBOL working group through Category C liaison represented by Michel Dessier, of Bull France. WG4 also has liaisons to the following SC22 working groups: SC22/WG20 - Ann Wallace SC22/WG11 - Don Nelson Liaison with SC22/WG9 was terminated within the reporting period due to completion of Ada's COBOL interface. 2.0 PERIOD REVIEW 2.1 MARKET REQUIREMENTS COBOL continues to be widely used for new development and for enhancement and re-engineering of existing applications. Many factors drive the market for COBOL standardization: 1. Deployment of applications to workstations and distributed environments and the growth of COBOL in Unix environments has generated requirements for new features in the language. These needs have been met by implementor extensions to the language, in different ways by different implementors, leading to a need for post-implementation standardization. 2. Market pressure for new technology led COBOL vendors to cooperate on object-oriented design through the standardization process. Early implementations of the object-oriented features in the draft are now available and users are designing them into new applications. 3. Growth of COBOL in the Unix market led X/Open to develop a Common Application Environment (CAE) providing a portable definition of features essential in a Unix environment but lacking in standard COBOL. The need for portability with non-Unix platforms has resulted in a requirement for inclusion of these features in the international standard. 4. While business-oriented features are a main-stay of COBOL, the many services and interfaces in today's environments demand a wider variety of data types and better interoperation of COBOL with other languages. 5. Technology advances and resulting spread of computers to end users makes it mandatory that computer systems adapt to the languages of users. This gives rise to a need in COBOL for support of large character sets and cultural adaptibility. 6. The impact of year 2000 date handling generated a requirement for portable year-2000 features in the draft standard, which are now being widely implemented. The current draft revision addresses a great many of the market requirements for COBOL, but not all of them. Even as the draft standard progresses, new requirements are evolving. With the current trend to web-based operation, users are beginning to reconfigure existing COBOL applications as servers integrated with web clients. COBOL vendors are starting to introduce language extensions to support this environment. Thus, continued evolution of the international standard for COBOL is essential to provide the benefits of new technolgies and new environments to COBOL users worldwide. 2.2 ACHIEVEMENTS (1) A draft was forwared to SC22 for simultaneous CD registration and CD ballots. (2) WG4 consensus was reached on responses to CD comments, with the exception of one open item. 2.3 RESOURCES WG4 resources are sufficient at this time, though more would be welcomed. 24 people from 6 countries (Canada, Germany, Japan, The Netherlands, UK, and USA) and the X/Open Liaison (from France) attended the March 1997 WG4 meeting. J4 has the essential resources, with 11 member organizations participating in technical development; the major COBOL vendors and 3 user organizations are represented. Additionally, some members of WG4 submit technical contributions. J4 believes that additional resources would not necessarily improve the schedule at this stage, but the right additional resources could help to improve quality. 3.0 FOCUS NEXT WORK PERIOD 3.1 DELIVERABLES A draft incorporating changes in response to CD comments is being prepared in J4 and will be circulated in early-to-mid 1998 for a quality review in WG4. Time is allowed for addressing issues raised in the quality review. No deliverables to SC22 are planned in the next work period. 3.2 STRATEGIES The strategy for the next work period is to concentrate on consensus and quality. SC22's acceptance of responses to CD comments will measure consensus. An internal WG4 letter ballot will be utilized for quality review -- the intent is to reach major CD comment submittors in national bodies through WG4 letter ballot. 3.2.1 RISKS Given the consensus in WG4 on the content of the draft forwarded for CD in 1996, the number of comments from WG4 participants requesting substantive change in features was surprising. The convenor takes this as a caution that there is always a risk of surprises, and consequent schedule delays. 3.2.2 OPPORTUNITIES Use of the web provides an opportunity to make users aware of the process and activities of international standardization and may allow for increased user input on requirements. 3.3 WORK PROGRAM PRIORITIES (1) Rework in response to CD comments and a quality review of the draft leading to a Final CD ballot for the revision of ISO/IEC 1989. (2) Initiation of a subdivision of the COBOL work item to produce a technical report for a COBOL class library. This is in response to a CD comment requesting removal of the class library from the revision document. This item will be initiated at a time that does not interfere with progression of the revision. (3) Processing of Defect Reports against ISO/IEC 1989:1985 and its amendments. 4. OTHER ITEMS (CONVENOR'S REPORT ON ITEMS NOT INCLUDED IN THE BUSINESS PLAN) 4.1 ACTIONS REQUESTED AT THE 1997 SC22 PLENARY None, but consider whether 4.4 requires any SC22 action with respect to the use of Framemaker for the COBOL standard. 4.2 WG4 MEETINGS 4.2.1 IN REPORTING PERIOD March 17-21, 1997 - Monterey, CA. USA 4.2.2 PLANNED FOR NEXT WORK PERIOD July 13-18, 1998 - Chelmsford, MA USA (tentative) 4.3 APPOINTMENT OF CONVENOR The WG4 convenor's 3-year term expires at the end of the 1997 plenary. An application has been submitted for re-appointment, to be considered by the U.S. national body along with any other applications for appointment. At this writing, the result of U.S. solicitation of candidates is unknown. 4.4 MIGRATION TO ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT DISTRIBUTION The WG4 convenor is prepared for server-based transmission of documents to and from SC22. Paper redistribution is necessary to members of WG4 who do not have electronic access. The COBOL draft standard has been converted from WordPerfect to Framemaker. WG4 plans to deliver the draft electronically in pdf. NOTE: Framemaker is on the list of products ITTF permits for final standards, but not on the list of documents for distribution in JTC 1's Strategy for Implementation of IT. This is not a problem because pdf will be used for distribution to SC22 and JTC1. The convenor assumes that SC22 does not have to request an exception from JTC1 for use of Framemaker for submission of the standard itself to ITTF in Framemaker. 4.5 WG4 WEB PAGE A WG4 web page will be established. 4.6 TWO PERSONS TO UPDATE AND PRINT THE DRAFT STANDARD Now that the COBOL draft standard has been converted to Framemaker, WG4 can meet SC22's requirement that there be 2 people capable of updating and printing the document; they are: Project editor: Don Nelson Backup project editor: Ann Wallace ______________________ end of SC22 N2549 _______________________________