From rinehuls@access.digex.net Fri Aug 15 23:07:00 1997 Received: from access1.digex.net (qlrhmEbBUV1EY@access1.digex.net [205.197.245.192]) by dkuug.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA17680 for ; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 23:06:54 +0200 Received: from localhost (rinehuls@localhost) by access1.digex.net (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP id RAA16171 for ; Fri, 15 Aug 1997 17:06:50 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 17:06:50 -0400 (EDT) From: "william c. rinehuls" To: sc22docs@dkuug.dk Subject: SC22 N2559 - USA National Activity Report - FOR PLENARY 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 N2559 August 1997 TITLE: United States of America National Activity Report for the August 1997 JTC 1/SC22 Plenary SOURCE: Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 WORK ITEM: N/A STATUS: This Report will be considered under Agenda Item 7.2 at the August 1997 SC22 Plenary CROSS REFERENCE: N/A DOCUMENT TYPE: United States of America National Activity Report ACTION: To SC22 Member Bodies for information. 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 _________________ USA JTC1/SC22 National Activity Report This document is the USA's JTC1/SC22 National Activity Report to the 1997 plenary meeting of SC22. This report consists of two parts. The first part discusses US activity in programming languages for which JTC1/SC22 has parallel projects. The title of first part is "COMMON PROJECTS". The second part of this report discusses US activity in programming languages for which JTC1/SC22 has no parallel projects. The title of the second part is "NEW PROJECTS". Early this year, the parent committee for many of the US's programming language Technical Committees changed its name from X3 to the National Committee for Information Technology Standards, or NCITS (pronounced "insights"). Many of the technical committees formerly known as X3J ... and now referred to as simply J ... For example, the Pascal committee used to be called X3J9; it is now J9. COMMON PROJECTS The programming language standards development projects listed in this portion of the report are active within the USA and have corresponding JTC1/SC22 activity. Pascal [J9] The responsibility for maintenance of the American National Standards and ISO/IEC standards for the programming languages Pascal and Extended Pascal rests with J9. This includes the Technical Report on Object-Oriented Extensions to Pascal [X3/TR-013:1994], the international Pascal standard, ISO/IEC 7185:1990, and the Extended Pascal standards X3.160-1989 and ISO/IEC 10206:1991. APL [JTC1/SC22/WG3] The US is no longer actively participating in the development of the APL standards. COBOL [JTC1/SC22/WG4, J4] Technical committee J4 is responsible for the development of the US and international standards for COBOL. The scope of work also includes the responsibility to develop amendments and technical corrigenda to the current COBOL standard (ANSI X3.23-1985, ISO 1989: 1985). J4 continued development of a revision to ANSI X3.23-1985, ISO/IEC 1989:1985, which includes Multi-Octet Character Set (MOCS) support. Also included are exception handling; enhanced portability of arithmetic; object orientation; features for data validation; enhanced interlanguage calling; a screen handling facility; new data tpes for floating-point native binary, and booleans; and strong typing. Responses were developed for the comments on Working Draft 1.0. Committee Draft 1.0 is being circulated for review. J4 continues to place emphasis on synchronization with SC22/WG4. Fortran [JTC1/SC22/WG5, J3] J3 continued as the group appointed by SC22/WG5 that will maintain the Fortran standard--providing errata, interpretations, and amendments to the standard. To accomplish this, J3 has established the 006 document. J3 maintains this document in such a form that extractions can be made that satisfy the defect management requirements of both ANSI and ISO. The process continues for forwarding these extractions to SC22/WG5, as preparation for official adoption by ISO. J3 continued its close cooperation with SC22/WG5. SC22/WG5 will continue to act as the requirements body. J3 will continue to act as the implementation body. Both J3 and SC22/WG5 periodically review the progress of the implementation. J3 and SC22/WG5 having agreed that an evolutionary successor to Fortran 90 emphasizing corrections, clarifications, and interpretations, with minimal technical enhancements, be produced in the 1995/96 time frame, produced "Fortran 95". The document is currently in the final stages of approval. An evolutionary successor involving relatively greater technical enhancements is envisioned for the 2000/01 time frame. (Note: J3 delivered the 1995/96 revision draft document to WG5 in May of 1995). The cutoff for receiving suggestions for the 2000 standard has essentially already occurred. There was a joint WG5 meeting to establish the feature list candidates for "F2K". As always, J3 maintains a database of US requirements and continues to solicit input from the US public. The J3 committee is continuing its effort to improve the process of standards production via such mechanisms as greater use of Email and easier access to electronic copies of draft documents. Also under consideration are improvements to the document style. Paper distributions have ceased. All committee papers are circulated electronically. With the increasing need for integration, the future will also see continuing J3 cooperation with other (formal and informal) standards committees. Some examples are: parallelism (HPFF), operating systems (POSIX IEEE P1003.9, SC22/WG15), cross-language issues (T2, SC22/WG11), and graphics (H3, SC24). BASIC The US is no longer actively participating in the development of the BASIC standards. Ada [JTC1/SC22/WG9, SC22/WG9 TAG] Adoption of the 1995 version of the Ada language continues, with most US vendors now offering products supporting the full revised language. The U. S. Department of Defense recently dropped its requirement to use Ada 95 on all software, but support for use of the language continues within specific military application areas including embedded systems. DoD financial support for the Ada standardization is also planned to increase. US participation in the international standards effort continues. US participants in WG9 include the convener, the webmaster, and project editors for five of the eight projects currently assigned to WG9. The next meeting of WG9 will be hosted by the US in St. Louis on November 14, 1997. Bindings [JTC1/SC22/WG11, T2] Technical committee T2 is responsible for US standards development concerning data interchange and bindings. A portion of that work corresponds to JTC1/SC22 and the rest corresponds to JTC1/SC21 activities. The work of T2 that is related to JTC1/SC22 covers definitions of data types, procedure calls and arithmetic, independent of any particular processing language. Activities of T2 corresponding to JTC1/SC21 include information transfer syntax formats and description techniques, and a technique for interchange of conceptual schema. Modula-2 [JTC1/SC22/WG13, P1151] The standards development activities for Modula-2 are being carried out in project P1151 of the Microprocessor Standards Committee (MSC) of the Computer Society (CS) of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). C [JTC1/SC22/WG14, J11] J11 continued work on revising the ISO/IEC 9899:1990 standard, making major technical contributions as well as supplying the project editor. The CD registration process began in May and the CD ballot process is expected to begin in October. J11 also continued to assist SC22/WG14 with Defect Report processing. POSIX [JTC1/SC22/WG15, P1003] Standardization of POSIX is being pursued within the Portable Applications and Systems Committee (PASC, formerly TCOS) of the Computer Society (CS) of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). For more information, see http://www.pasc.org/. System Services Group 1003.1 POSIX System Application Programming Interfaces status: approved 1990 [ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990] 1003.1a Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for corrections and supplementary services and interfaces, status: in ballot 1003.1b (JTC1 22.21.01.02) - Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for POSIX Real-Time Services [formerly 1003.4],status: approved 9/93 1003.1c Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for POSIX Threads [formerly 1003.4a], status: approved 6/95 1003.1d (JTC1 22.40) - Second Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for POSIX Real-Time Services [formerly 1003.4b], status: in ballot 1003.1f (JTC1 22.21.01.03.01) - Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for Transparent File Access [formerly 1003.8], status: project withdrawn 1003.1h Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for Fault Tolerance, status: in ballot 1003.1i Corrigenda to 1003.1b, status: approved 6/95 1003.1j Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for Advanced Real-Time Extensions, status: in ballot 1003.1k Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for Removable Media status: project withdrawn 1003.1l (this designation not used) 1003.1m Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for Checkpoint/Restart status: under development 1003.1n Corrigenda to 1003.1/1b/1c/1i status: under development 1003.1o (this designation not used) 1003.1p Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for Resource Limits status: under development 1003.1q Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for Tracing status: under development Shell and Utilities Group 1003.2 (JTC1 22.21.02.01) - POSIX Shell and Utilities status: approved 9/92 [ISO/IEC 9945-2:1993] 1003.2a (JTC1 22.21.02.02) - Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.2-1992 for User Portability Extensions, status: approved 9/92 1003.2b (JTC1 22.41) - Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.2-1992, status: in ballot 1003.2d Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.2-1992 for Batch Processing, status: approved 12/94 1003.2e Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.2-1993 for Removable Media status: project withdrawn Test Methods Group 1003.3 Test Methods for POSIX, status: approved 3/91 2003 (JTC1 22.37) - Revision of IEEE Std 1003.3-1990, Test Methods for POSIX [formerly 1003.3], status: in ballot [ISO/IEC 13210] 2003.1 Test Methods for IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 [formerly 1003.3.1] status: approved 12/92 2003.1b Amendment to Test Methods for IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for 1003.1b status: in ballot 2003.2 Test Methods for IEEE Std 1003.2-1993 [formerly 1003.3.2] status: approved 6/96 2003.5 Test Methods for IEEE Std 1003.5-1992 (Ada) status: project withdrawn Language Bindings Group 1003.5 Ada binding to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990, status: approved 6/92 1003.5a (JTC1 22.21.04.02) - Corrigenda to IEEE Std 1003.5-1992 (Ada Binding to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990) status: project withdrawn 1003.5b Amendment 1 to IEEE Std 1003.5-1992 (Ada Binding to IEEE Stds 1003.1b and 1003.1c) status: approved 6/96 1003.5c Amendment 2 to IEEE Std 1003.5-1992 (Ada Binding to IEEE Std 1003.1g) status: under development 1003.5d Ada Binding for 1003.1g, status: project withdrawn 1003.5f Ada Binding for 1003.21, status: under development 1003.9 Fortran 77 binding to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990, status: approved 6/92 1003.24 Ada Binding for X Windows, based on OSF Motif 2.0 and IEEE Std 1295. status: under development Security Group 1003.1e (JTC1 22.42) - Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for Security [formerly 1003.6.1], status: in ballot 1003.2c (JTC1 22.43) - Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.2-1993 for Security [formerly 1003.6.2], status: in ballot 1003.22 Guide to Security in Distributed POSIX Environments, status: in ballot System Administration Group 1387.2 (JTC1 22.21.03.04) -Software Administration [formerly 1003.7.2] status: approved 6/95 [ISO/IEC 15068-2] 1387.3 (JTC1 22.21.03.05) - User and Group Administration [formerly 1003.7.3], status: approved 12/96 [ISO/IEC 15068-3] 1387.4 (JTC1 22.21.03.03) - Print Administration [formerly 1003.7.1] status: in ballot [ISO/IEC 15068-4] Distributed Services Group 1003.1g (JTC1 22.21.01.03.03) - Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for Protocol-Independent Transport Services [formerly 1003.12], status: in ballot (approval expected 9/97) 1003.21 Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for Real-Time Communications, status: in ballot Profiles Group 1003.0 Guide to POSIX Open Systems Environments, status: approved 5/95 [ISO/IEC 14252 (Technical Report)] 1003.10 Supercomputing Application Environment Profile for POSIX, status: approved 6/95 1003.11 Transaction Processing Application Environment Profile for POSIX, status: project withdrawn 1003.13 Real-Time Application Environment Profile standard for POSIX, status: in ballot 1003.14 Multi-Processing Application Environment Profile for POSIX, status: in ballot 1003.18 POSIX Interactive Systems Application Environment Profile status: in ballot 1003.23 Guide for Developing User Open System Environment (OSE) Profiles, status: under development Common Lisp [JTC1/SC22/WG16, J13] Technical committee J13 is responsible for the standardization of the Common LISP programming language in the USA. In December 1994, an ANSI standard for the Common Lisp was formally approved as X3.226-1994. Common Lisp is the first ANSI standard for an object-oriented programming language. J13 began with base document Common Lisp: The Language, by Guy L. Steele Jr. The X3.226-1994 standard places much greater emphasis on portability and clarifies many aspects of compilation semantics. The standard also adds several major pieces of new functionality: an object-oriented programming system, a condition handling system, an improved iteration facility, and better support for large character sets. Presentation of information in the standard is also substantively different than in the base document. Specifically, the standard separates concept information from dictionary information, separates normative material from examples, introduces several new notations for more compact and/or precise presentation of certain kinds of information, and includes an extensive glossary of terms. Prolog [JTC1/SC22/WG17, J17] J17 is working with WG17 and focusing on the preparation, publication, and balloting of the Final CD for Part 2. Extra time has been allowed in the timetable to permit resolution of some remaining issues concerning metapredicates. It is hoped that a DIS will be published by the third quarter of 1998. Formal Specification Languages [JTC1/SC22/WG19, J21] J21 has JTC 1 TAG responsibilities for the SC22 projects on Formal Specification Languages (FSLs). These projects currently are JTC 1.22.29, Vienna Definition Method Specification Language (VDM-SL) and JTC 1.22.45, Z Specification Language (Z). J21 interprets the scope of work as being implemented by attention to (1) VDM-SL standardization, (2) Z standardization, and (3) responding to requests of other technical committees and other standards development organizations for technical assistance and collaboration with regard the use of the assigned FSLs in the development of standards, such assistance and collaboration being carried out as liaison activities with the committees involved. During this reporting period there has been no significant activity on VDM-SL, however, J21 has maintained a very active involvement in the work of WG19 (Z Rapporteur Group). Two members of J2 (D. R. Johnson and M. W. Saaltink) are also members of WG19 and have participated by providing comments on technical issues being considered by WG19 and by reviewing and commenting on committee documents. In addition, both are among the primary writers of the standard, responsible between them for revising four chapters of the current CD. At the request of the US TAG, NCITS T3, members of J21 have provided ballot comments on the SC21/WG7 project ISO/IEC 10746-4/pDAM-1 (RM-ODP, both 4.2 and 4.3), were US delegates to the 1996 Plenary Meeting of SC21, and continue to participate in editing meetings for these documents. In liaison with NCITS H7, members of J21 have contributed to their work on the RM-ODP Enterprise Viewpoint and have reviewed the potential use of deontic logic in addition to model-based FSLs to make precise formal statements of obligations, permissions and prohibitions. PCTE [JTC1/SC22/WG22] The US recently terminated its activities in the development of the PCTE standards. PL/I [J1] Technical committee J1 is responsible for maintaining the two standards for the PL/I programming language. Those standards are X3.53-1976, PL/I, and X3.74-1987, PL/I General Purpose Subset. J1 also maintains a technical report (X3/TR-8) on a working definition of the proposed extensions PL/1 real time applications. PL/I standards activity in the USA has been largely dormant since the completion of ANSI X3.74-1987 (corresponding to DP 6522) in mid 1987 and the ISO reaffirmation of ANSI X3.53-1976 (corresponding to ISO 6160) in mid-1988. As a result the technical committee has been put into maintenance status. There have been no requests for clarification or other committee responsibilities other than reporting and liaison activities. C++ [JTC1/SC22/WG21, J16] Technical committee J16 is responsible for the US activities concerning the standardization of the C++ programming language. Since the last JTC1/SC22 plenary, the project for the development of the standard has proceeded together with JTC1/SC22/WG21. The US intends to adopt the international C++ standard as an American National Standard. As a consequence, the US process held a public review of the C++ CD, which was produced November 1996. J16 addressed the comments from this public review at its meeting in Nashua NH in March 1997, and recommended a US vote of "Approval, with comments". J16 has completed its response to the first US Public Comment process on the previous CD that was balloted mid-1995. Internationalization [JTC1/SC22/WG20, L2] L2 has recently assumed the US TAG responsibilities for WG20, Internationalization. L2 reviewed the DTR ballot for the revision of TR 10176, Guidelines for the preparation of programming language standards. L2 recommended a NO vote and has provided a comprehensive set of comments. The next actions are expected to be: Review of a registration and CD ballot for IS 14652 - Specification of Cultural Conventions (in July/August) Review of a FCD ballot for IS 14651 - International string ordering (December) Review of a registration and CD ballot for IS 15435 - Internationalization APIs (early 1998) It is hoped that the US will also send people to the WG20 meeting again. Java Study Group [JTC1/SC22/JSG, J22] The US recently established J22 to serve as the US TAG to SC22's Java Study Group. J22 has held one meeting, to prepare for the London meeting of the JSG. 'NEW' PROJECTS The US recognizes that several of its national programming language standards activities do not correspond to projects in JTC1/SC22. The US is pleased to offer JTC1/SC22 information to assist its membership in determining whether to develop worldwide standards for those languages. The programming language standards development projects listed in this portion of the report are active within the US but do not have corresponding JTC1/SC22 activity. Forth [J14/P1141] J14 (operating jointly with IEEE P1141) finished developing a standard for the Forth Programming Language. It received final approval March 24, 1994, with the designation X3.215: 1994. The effort has been underway since August 1987. This standard was recently approved, via the fast track process, as an International Standard. PL/B [J15] (formerly DATABUS) Technical committee J15, formed in April 1988, has developed a US national standard, X3.238 for the programming language PL/B. REXX [J18] The first standard for the Rexx programming language is published as X3.274-1996 The project for an Extended Rexx version is approved and under way. MUMPS [MDC] Since acceptance of the 1990 US M[UMPS] standard as an ISO standard (ISO/IEC 11756, M[UMPS]), significant additional work has been completed by the M[UMPS] Development Committee (MDC). A new suite of standards completed the canvass approval process in the course of 1995. The M[UMPS] Development Committee will recommend fast-track ISO submission for: X11.1, language specification (revision of ISO 11756-1992) X11.2, Open M[UMPS] Interconnect (new standard) X11.6, M[UMPS] Windowing Application Programmers' Interface (new standard) The ANSI standards include a new version of the M[UMPS] language standard (X11.1), the Open M[UMPS] Interconnect (X11.2), and the M Windowing Application Programmer Interface (X11.6). There are also bindings to SQL, GKS, and control codes for 7 bit and 8 bit sets (X3.64). The SQL and X3.64 bindings have been incorporated into X11.1. The GKS binding is a separate document (X11.3). The new version of the language standard includes character set description protocols that allow the M[UMPS] language to provide international character set support in a standard fashion. It also includes transaction processing, exception handling, expanded device handling, and a protocol for calling programs or functions outside the M[UMPS] language. The Open M[UMPS] Interconnect (OMI) facilitates inter-vendor data sharing. The M Windowing API (MWAPI) provides windowing functionality independent of the underlying windowing environment. The API separates windowing gadget description from processing, which significantly reduces the set of instructions required. While the work frozen in 1994 moves through the approval process, the MDC has been working on additional functionality. To date, sixty-four proposals, ranging from entire libraries of mathematics routines to error corrections and new operators has been approved. Current proposals include one proposal sponsored by our European colleagues that would add object oriented features and remove many current syntactic elements, producing a totally new version of the language. Smalltalk (J20) The US is continuing a project to develop a standard for the Smalltalk programming language. Current project plans call for producing a US standard. _______________________ end of SC22 N2559 ___________________________