Subject: SC22 N2549 - WG4 Business Plan and Conveners Report - PLENARY ITEM

From: "william c. rinehuls" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 12:48:52 -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
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:  [email-masked]

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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:    [email-masked]

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 _______________________________