Subject: SC22 N2611 - Minutes/Resolutions of WG13 (Modula-2) March 1997 Meeting

From: "william c. rinehuls" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 1997 16:47:21 -0500 (EST)

______________________ 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
N2611

TITLE:
Minutes and Resolutions of the SC22/WG13 (Modula-2) Meeting on March
17-18, 1997 in Linz, Austria

DATE ASSIGNED:
1997-11-12

SOURCE:
Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22

BACKWARD POINTER:
N/A

DOCUMENT TYPE:
WG13 Minutes and Resolutions

PROJECT NUMBER:
N/A

STATUS:
N/A

ACTION IDENTIFIER:
FYI

DUE DATE:
N/A

DISTRIBUTION:
Text

CROSS REFERENCE:
N/A

DISTRIBUTION FORM:
Open

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

_________________ end of title page; beginning of text ________________

                  Minutes and Resolutions of the
         12th Meeting of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 Modula-2
            at Linz, Austria, 1997-03-17 to 1997-03-18

0 Delegates

The following eight delegates (in alphabetical order) attended the
meeting in the listed functions:

Eberhard Enger (Germany)
Elmar Henne (Germany)
David Lightfoot (United Kingdom HoD)
Kees Pronk (Netherlands HoD)
Wolfgang Redtenbacher (Germany HoD)
Martin Schoenhacker (Austria HoD, Convener)
Rick Sutcliffe (Canada HoD)
Albert Wiedemann (Germany)

1 Welcome, Opening

(Monday Morning)

The meeting opened with the new Convenor Martin Schoenhacker in
the chair.  He expressed the Working Group's thanks to Prof.
Moessenboeck for hosting the meeting at his institute.

Prof. Moessenboeck welcomed the group and explained the local
facilities and computer arrangements.

Apologies were recorded from:  Derek Andrews (United Kingdom),
Steven Cater (United States), Richard Thomas (Australia), and Martin
Schleusser (Germany).  The convener also reported that Herbert
Klaeren had informed him of his resignation as a member of WG13 at
the end of 1996 because of lack of time.

It was established that all participating delegates had been
properly nominated by their National Bodies.

2 Confirmation of Agenda

(Monday Morning)

Rick Sutcliffe proposed to add two items to item 12 on the
preliminary agenda [Linz97-1]:

"12.1 Relations of Modula-2 to the Java Virtual Machine"
 and
"12.2 Generic Template Library".

The agenda was unanimously accepted with these additions.

3 Roll Call of Delegates

(Monday Morning)

On request of the convener, the delegates used the roll call to
report on their work with Modula-2 and of the use of Modula-2 at
universities and in industry.

4 Resolutions and Minutes of the WG13 Meeting, Oxford, June 1996

(Monday Morning)

The minutes and resolutions of the Oxford meeting [D233] were
accepted without changes.

5 Results of the SC22 Plenary, London, September 1996

(Monday Morning)

Martin Schoenhacker and Kees Pronk reported about the results of the
SC22 meeting at London, September 1996, as far as they were relevant
for WG13.

Martin Schoenhacker had been appointed as the new Convenor of WG13.

SC22 had approved to go ahead with a Letter Ballot for a New Project
proposal to produce a Type 3 Technical Report "Interfacing Modula-2
to C".  The ballot had been successfully completed in the meantime, 
and the new project had been accepted and named 22.15436.

The CD ballots for the subprojects 22.18.2 (Object Oriented
Extensions) and 22.18.4 (Generics) had yielded positive results and
were ready go ahead for DIS.  After some discussion about the rules
for using the old or new DIS procedures, the convener was directed
to cross-check with the SC22 Secretariat and to take any steps
necessary to allow the projects to continue within the "old" DIS
procedures.

The meeting resolved to go for DIS with both subprojects.
(See Resolutions 1..4 and 9.)

Martin Schoenhacker reported some changes in the rules for drafting:
- The term "clause" shall be used instead of "section".
- References to other Standards shall be undated.
- The bibliography shall now be a distinct element instead of an
  informative annex.
 
Kees Pronk pointed out that there were still some deviations from
Part 3 of the ISO Directives in the CD papers.  The project editors
were directed to check their documents against those directives and
incorporate the appropriate changes.

Kees Pronk also mentioned the rules for electronic documents.
Discussion of this topic was deferred to agenda item 9.1.

The project editors and backup editors had been approved by SC22. 
However, in the meantime Herbert Klaeren (backup for Generics) and
Roger Henry (backup for Base Language) were no longer available.
Albert Wiedemann volunteered as backup editor for Generics, and
Martin Schoenhacker volunteered as backup editor for the Base
Language.  (See Resolutions 5 and 6.)

6. Object Oriented Modula-2 (Project JTC1 22.18.2)

6.1 Result of the CD Ballot

(Monday Morning)

Martin Schoenhacker reported on the ballot results as documented in
[SC22 N2354]

Agenda items 6.2 and 6.3 were postponed to the next day to provide
additional time for proofreading [D240].  (However, the Minutes
follow the structure of the original agenda.)

6.2 Preparation of the Disposition of Comments

(Tuesday Afternoon)

Albert Wiedemann took the group through his draft [D239].  The
meeting accepted D239 with some minor editorial changes.

After some discussion of alternative words for the keyword UNSAFE,
the meeting agreed to use UNSAFEGUARDED and to give an according
response to the German comment.

6.3 Changes to the Document

(Tuesday Afternoon)

Several minor changes in wording and layout were pointed out to the
project editor for incorporation in the next version.  It was
decided not to include an informative annex with rationales (as
used to be available in older papers).

Several other minor changes in wording and layout were pointed out
to the project editor for incorporation in the DIS draft.

The draft DIS for Generics was assigned document number [D250].  The
project editor was asked to provide it in electronic form by
1997-04-07 for final review.  The deadline for comments from members
of the Working Group was set to 1997-04-14, and the target date for
the final DIS document, which would become [D252], was set to
1997-04-21.

7. Generics (Project JTC1 22.18.4)

7.1 Results of the CD Ballot

(Monday Morning)

Martin Schoenhacker reported on the ballot results as documented in
[SC22 N2353].

7.2 Preparation of the Disposition of Comments

(Monday Morning)

Rick Sutcliffe went through his draft of the Disposition of Comments 
[D241]. The meeting accepted [D241] with some minor editorial
changes.

In the context of the Netherlands' comment -6- there was some
discussion about a possible facility to indicate in the head of a
compilation module the use of generic (or object oriented)
extensions.  However, the Working Group decided not to include a
feature of this kind.

7.3 Changes to the Document

(Monday Afternoon)

Martin Schoenhacker noted that this would be the last chance to make
other than minor editorial changes.

At the SC22 meeting it had been decided to change the title to
"Generics in Modula-2".  Also, the foreword would have to be changed
to a placeholder for a text provided by ISO.  It was resolved to
remove the rationale and to move the acknowledgements to an
informative annex.

Several other minor changes in wording and layout were pointed out
to the project editor for incorporation in the DIS draft.

The draft DIS for Generics was assigned document number [D246].  The
project editor was asked to provide it in electronic form by
1997-04-07 for final review.  The deadline for comments from members
of the Working Group was set to 1997-04-14, and the target date for
the final DIS document, which would become [D251], was set to
1997-04-21.

8. Interfacing Modula-2 to C (Project JTC1 22.15436)

8.1 Result of the NP Proposal

(Monday Afternoon)

Martin Schoenhacker reported that the NP Ballot had received 18 Yes
votes.  No votes came from France (because of no interest in
Modula-2) and the United States (based on the opinion that the Base
Language is flawed).  Six countries were ready to participate: 
Austria, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom.

8.2 Discussion of the Working Draft

(Monday Afternoon)

Eberhard Enger did a short presentation of his document.  The rest
of this agenda item was postponed to the next day.

(Tuesday Morning)

There was some discussion about the relation of the report to
existing implementations of interfaces to libraries defined in the C
language.  It was suggested that a statement about this should be
inserted in the introduction.

Several style issues were raised.  It was pointed out that the style
of the whole document, which was in its current state presented in
HTML, should be made more consistent with other ISO documents in
accordance with the rules as given in Part 3 of the ISO Directives.

The following suggestions were discussed and accepted:

- The discussion of lowlines in clause 4.2.1 can be removed.
- The abbreviation "a.s.o." should be replaced.
- Figure 1 should be replaced by a table.
- Some general remark should be inserted to clarify the problem with
  machine independent data types in the Standards and the need for
  fixed type sizes in an interface.
- Some explanation for the use of the term "intended use" should be
  added.
- Clause 4.3.7 should be reworded, some general statement about
  memory layout for structured data types is needed.
- Hyperlinks must be made visible.
- The meaning of the symbol "==>" should be explained.
- Clause 4.3.10 can be deleted, a note about opaque types in 4.3.6
  is sufficient.
- Clause 4.3.13 should be renamed to "Auxiliary Type Names" and
  should be reworded.
- The document needs more discussion about the problem with string
  termination characters (currently, the value 0C was assumed).
- Clause 4.5 must be rewritten, global variables should be mapped
  via global variables. A general explanation of linkage system is
  needed.
- Clause 4.6.5 should be totally rewritten.
- Clause 4.8 can be removed, part of it may  go to 4.1.
- An example for module C-Types should be given and the same
  notation for implementation defined types as in the Standard
  should be used.  SIZE can be used instead of SYSTEM.TSIZE.

Establishing a contact to WG14 (C) was proposed.  It was requested
that a new Working Draft should be availble by June 1997.

9. Electronic Information Systems

9.1 Electronic Handling of Documents within JTC1

(Monday Afternoon)

It was reported that at least some votes can now be cast by email
and that SC22 had established a mailing list for small documents.

Of the acceptable ISO formats and file name extensions for
electronic distribution, it was decided that WG13 would use RTF
(Rich Text Format) for submission of its documents.  A conversion to
plain text and Postscript would be provided where possible and
appropriate.

9.2 Global Information Infrastructure

(Monday Afternoon)

Kees Pronk provided some background about new directions inside ISO
to concentrate only on "important projects" with market relevance.

There was been some discussion about the "Global Information
Infrastructure" Document within JTC1 and the place of programming
languages in the various tables.  It was decided to wait for a
resolution of this matter on the SC level.

9.3 WG13 on the World Wide Web

(Monday Afternoon)

It was reported that there are no requirements, but various
suggestions for the Working Group level Web pages.

>From documents received from SC22, it was confirmed that CDs and
other documents up to that level could be made freely available,
whereas DIS and FDIS documents would still have to be kept
confidential (using password protection or hidden directories).

10. WG13 Programme of Work and Next Meeting(s)

(Tuesday Afternoon)

The meeting resolved that DIS documents D251 and D252 should be
submitted to SC22 by late April, 1997.

The TR "Interfacing Modula-2 to C" should be published as a Working
Draft or PDTR by June. The decision whether to publish it as a WD or
PDTR and the further schedule was deferred to be decided on e-mail.

The convener was asked to schedule the next meeting appropriately as
soon as the closing dates of the forthcoming DIS ballots are known.

11. Preparation of Resolutions and Minutes

(Tuesday Afternoon)

The draft Resolutions [Linz97-2] were discussed and accepted with
some small editorial changes.  It was decided to circulate the final
Resolutions and Minutes by e-mail as soon as possible.

12. Any Other Business

12.1 Relations of Modula-2 to the JAVA Virtual Machine

(Tuesday Afternoon)

Considerable interest in this matter was expressed, and Rick
Sutcliffe announced that he would prepare a preliminary study paper
for discussion on e-mail.

12.2 Generic Template Library

(Tuesday Afternoon)

Rick Sutcliffe reported about an upcoming thesis which deals with
this issue.  It uses VDM for specification and an automatic
transformation to Modula-2 source code, and will be made available
on the web.  The meeting showed interest in discussing the matter in
more detail as soon as the document becomes available.  In
particular, it was suggested that a future edition of the Generics
document could contain the proposed library in an Annex.

13. Adjournment

(Tuesday Afternoon)

The convener thanked all delegates for their participation, and
the meeting was closed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Annex A:  Resolutions of the
          12th Meeting of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 Modula-2
          at Linz, Austria, 1997-03-17 to 1997-03-18

The following Resolutions were accepted unanimously:

1. WG13 confirms D248 as its response to National Body comments on
CD 10514-3 (Object Oriented Modula-2).

2. WG13 confirms its commitment to project JTC1 22.18.2 (Object
Oriented Modula-2) and directs the project editor to prepare the DIS
based on D240 and D248.

3. WG13 confirms D247 as its response to National Body comments on
CD 10514-2 (Generics in Modula-2).

4. WG13 confirms its commitment to project JTC1 22.18.4 (Generics in
Modula-2) and directs the project editor to prepare the DIS based
on D242 and D247.

5. WG13 recommends to SC22 that Albert Wiedemann be appointed as the
new backup editor for project JTC1 22.18.4 (Generics in Modula-2).

6. WG13 recommends to SC22 that Martin Schoenhacker be appointed as
the new backup editor for IS 10514-1 (Modula-2, Base Language).

7. WG13 directs the project editor of project JTC1 22.15436
(Interfacing Modula-2 to C) to prepare the next draft of the
Technical Report by 1997-06-16 and to communicate this document to
WG13 by email for further discussion.  WG13 will then decide how to
proceed with this project by using email.

8. WG13 directs its convener to establish appropriate liaison with
WG14 (C) and WG5 (Fortran) with respect to project JTC1 22.15436
(Interfacing Modula-2 to C).

9. WG13 directs the project editors for JTC1 22.18.2 and
JTC1 22.18.4 to complete the DIS drafts for submission to SC22 by
1997-04-21.

10. WG13 directs its convener to adapt the scheduling of the
programme of work as soon as the closing dates of the DIS ballots
are known.

11. WG13 confirms that documents submitted to SC22 in electronic
format will use RTF.

12. WG13 extends its thanks to Kees Pronk and Rene Pronk for
maintaining its Web site and FTP server.

13. WG13 extends its thanks to Prof. Hanspeter Moessenboeck and his
institute for hosting the 12th meeting of WG13.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Annex B:  Relevant Documents

[Linz97-1]  ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 Linz97-1
            Preliminary Agenda for the 12th Meeting of
            ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 Modula-2 at Linz, Austria,
            March 17-18, 1997.
[Linz97-2]  ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 Linz97-2
            Draft Reolutions of the 12th Meeting of
            ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 Modula-2 at Linz, Austria,
            March 17-18, 1997.

[D233] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D233
       Minutes and Resolutions of Oxford meeting (unapproved).
[D234] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D234
       OO Proposal (CD version).
[D235] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D235
       Generics Proposal (CD version).
[D236] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D236
       Invitation for WG13 meeting in Tuebingen.
[D237] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D237
       Request for subdivision of Work Item for Type 3 Technical
       Report "Interfacing Modula-2 to C".
[D238] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D238
       New Work Item Proposal for a work item for a Type 3
       Technical Report "Interfacing Modula-2 to C".
[D239] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D239
       Draft Disposition of Comments on CD 10514-3 (Object
       Oriented Extensions).
[D240] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D240
       Draft Revised version of CD 10514-3 (Object Oriented
       Extensions).
[D241] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D241
       Draft Disposition of Comments on CD10514-2 (Generics).
[D242] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D242
       Draft Revised version of CD 10514-2 (Generics).
[D243] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D243
       First Working Draft TR on Interfacing Modula-2 to C.
[D244] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D244
       Updated WG13 Address List.
[D245] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D245
       Results of voting on TR "Interfacing Modula-2 to C".
[D246] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D246
       DIS draft for Generics (for review by WG members).
[D247] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D247
       Disposition of Comments on Generics.
[D248] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D248
       Disposition of Comments on Object Oriented Extensions.
[D249] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D249
       Resolutions and Minutes of Linz meeting (unapproved).
[D250] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D250
       DIS draft of Object Oriented Extensions.
[D251] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D251
       Final Version of DIS for Generics in Modula-2.
[D252] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 D252
       Final version of DIS for Object Oriented Extensions.

__________________ end of SC22 N2611 __________________________