Subject: SC22 N2742 - WG5 Business Plan and Convener's Report for SC22 Plenary

From: "william c. rinehuls" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 18:10:58 -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
N2742

TITLE:
WG5 Business Plan and WG5 Convener's Report for the August 1998 JTC 1/SC22
Plenary - PLENARY AGENDA ITEM

DATE ASSIGNED:
1998-06-29

SOURCE:
Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22

BACKWARD POINTER:
N/A

DOCUMENT TYPE:
WG Convener's Report

PROJECT NUMBER:
N/A

STATUS:
This document will be on the agenda for the August 1998 JTC 1/SC22
Plenary.

ACTION IDENTIFIER:
FYI OR ACT, as applicable

DUE DATE:
N/A

DISTRIBUTION:
Text

CROSS REFERENCE:
N/A

DISTRIBUTION FORM:
Def

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]

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                  WG5 BUSINESS PLAN AND CONVENER'S REPORT
                   TO THE ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 1998 PLENARY

PERIOD COVERED BY THIS REPORT:   August 1997 - July 1998

SUBMITTED BY:  Dr Miles Ellis  (Convener of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5)
               Director:  Educational Technology Resources Centre,
               University of Oxford, 
               37 Wellington Square, 
               Oxford  OX1 2JF, England.
	       Phone: +44 1865 270528,  Fax: +44 1865 270527,
               Email: [email-masked]

1      MANAGEMENT SUMMARY

1.1    JTC1/SC22/WG5 Statement of Scope

The development and maintenance of ISO/IEC Fortran programming language
standards.

1.2    Project Report

1.2.1  Completed Projects

22.02.01.01  Programming Language Fortran - Part 1: Base Language

    The revised Standard (ISO/IEC 1539-1) was published in December 1997.

22.02.01.02  Type 2 TR on Floating Point Exception Handling in Fortran

    The DTR ballot ended in March 1998 with a unanimous vote of approval.
A handful of (mainly editorial) comments were made, and these have been
addressed. The final text of the Technical Report (ISO/IEC TR 15580) was
submitted to ITTF for publication in June 1998.

22.02.01.04  Type 2 TR on Enhanced Data Type Facilities in Fortran

    The DTR ballot ended in March 1998 with a unanimous vote of approval.  Some
    technical comments were made, and these have been addressed.  The final
    text of the Technical Report (ISO/IEC TR 15581) was submitted to ITTF
    for publication in June 1998.

1.2.2  Projects Underway

22.02.02     Programming Language Fortran - Part 2: Varying length
character strings

    There have been some slight delays in the completion of this project
as a result of the change in the terms of reference approved at the 1997
SC22 Plenary, when work on the normative part of the Standard was
authorised in addition to the originally planned work on the non-normative
annexe.  It has now been decided to completely remove the non-normative
annexe containing a sample Fortran 95 module which can be used to 
implement the provisions of the Standard, and to make this available as
a public domain module.  Final editorial changes are currently being
carried out to the Standard itself, and it is expected that the document
will be ready for submission for CD Registration and Final CD ballots
later this year.

22.02.03     Programming Language Fortran - Part 3: Conditional Compilation

    The Final CD ballot ended in March 1998 with unanimous approval and
no comments. The document, revised in accordance with certain editorial
comments submitted by ITTF, was submitted for DIS balloting in June 1998.

1.2.3  Cancelled Projects

22.02.01.03  Type 2 TR on Interoperability between Fortran and C

    This proved more complex than anticipated.  The PDTR ballot ended on
September 11, 1997, with overall approval, but was accompanied by a
substantial number of technical comments, with the result that WG5 decided
that it would not be possible to complete the TR in time for any
experience of its use to be used as input for the development of Fortran
2000 in accordance with WG5's self-imposed rules regarding such
TRs.  Accordingly, WG5 decided to move this work item directly to the
revision of Fortran 95 as a high priority requirement for Fortran 2000,
and to abandon the production of the Technical Report.

1.2.4  Cooperation and Competition

WG5 cooperates closely with the ANSI NCITS/J3 Fortran Technical Committee,
to whom it has delegated the technical development of Fortran 2000 as well
as the maintenance of Fortran 95 (ISO/IEC 1539-1:1997).  There is also
close contact with the industry-driven High Performance Fortran
Consortium, with several members of the HPF Consortium also being
members of J3 and/or WG5.  Many of those responsible for the development of
commercial Fortran compilers are members of J3 and/or WG5.

Other important liaisons are those with IFIP WG2.5 (Numerical Software)
and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG20 (Internationalization).

There are no competitive activities.

2      PERIOD REVIEW

2.1    Market Requirements

Fortran is still the language of choice for the majority of scientific and
technological programming.  The long delay between the release of Fortran
77 and the availability of Fortran 90 compilers, at a time when other
languages, such as C and C++, were evolving rapidly, had a significant
impact on the use of Fortran, but there are now clear signs that the
facilities available in Fortran 90 and Fortran 95 are causing a growing
number of scientific and technological users to move towards these latest
versions of Fortran.  In parallel with this, the availability of two
commercial subsets designed primarily for educational use (F from
Imagine, Inc and Elf90 from Lahey Computing Systems, Inc) is generating
increased interest in Fortran from the higher education sector.

Almost all major Fortran compiler vendors are represented either on WG5
or its Primary Development Body, NCITS/J3, as are many of the major
research establishments which rely on Fortran for their numerical
computing.  There is also an active email list for users of Fortran
90 which provides valuable feedback from users.  All these diverse
sources are used to guide the development of the language, both through
revisions to the base language Standard, and through other related
standards and technical reports.

2.2    Achievements

The latest revision of the base Fortran Standard has been published,
while two Technical Reports are awaiting publication.

Work on Part 3 of the Standard has been completed, and the new Standard
is expected to be published before the end of 1998, following its 2-month
DIS ballot.

2.3    Resources

As elsewhere in the Standardization world, it is becoming increasingly
difficult to persuade employers to provide the necessary funding for
Standards activity.  WG5 delegates most of the technical work involved in
developing Standards and Technical Reports to "development bodies" which
are either based on a national Fortran committee, as in the case of
NCITS/J3  the primary development body responsible for development of the
revision to the base language standard and its subsequent maintenance, or
consist of a (small) multinational group under the leadership of the
relevant project editor.  WG5 currently has five such active development
bodies, including the primary development body.

WG5 itself carries out much of its discussions via email, with an annual
meeting during the summer, and occasional other meetings at critical
stages in the development of the base language standard.  The meeting in
June 1998 was attended by fifteen members, including the Convenor,
representing five countries;  two other countries who had expected to be
represented were unable to attend at the last minute.

3      FOCUS FOR NEXT WORK PERIOD

3.1    Deliverables

It is anticipated that the new Part 3 of the Standard (Conditional
Compilation) will be approved by late summer of 1998, and that it will be
published by the end of the year.

It is expected that the revision of Part 2 of the Standard (Varying length
character strings) will submitted for its Final CD ballot during the first
half of the next year, and that it will be submitted for its DIS ballot
before the end of the year.

3.2    Strategies

WG5 operates under a strategic plan described in WG5 Standing Document 4,
which is unchanged from that annexed to last year's Report as WG5 N1287.
In particular, the revision of the base Standard, IS 1539-1, is delegated
to ANSI NCITS/J3 operating as WG5's Primary Development Body, while the
other projects for which WG5 is responsible are handled by other
Development Bodies which liaise with the Primary Development Body as
required.

3.2.1  Risks

As far as possible, WG5 tries to anticipate technical comments during
international ballots by holding informal ballots of its members before
any documents are submitted for ballot. Nevertheless, unexpected technical
comments can always delay the planned schedule.

3.2.2  Opportunities

WG5 has made extensive use of email for over a decade to speed up technical
development. Since 1995 most documents have been distributed via an
official file server in the UK, with two mirror sites in the USA;  all
documents have been distributed in this way since 1997.  A web site is
also used to provide static and non-technical information.

In addition to speeding up the distribution of documents, the use of
electronic distribution and communication systems also provides many other
benefits, such as the ability to rapidly carry out informal ballots of the
members for various reasons.

3.3    Work Program Priorities

Publication of Part 3 of the Standard (Conditional Compilation) and the
progression of the revision of Part 2 (Varying Length Strings) to approval
of the Final CD are WG5's two priority activities this year.

WG5 members will also monitor, and/or participate in, the work of WG5's
Primary Development Body as it moves into the final stages of the
development of the Working Draft of the revision of the base Fortran
language Standard, ISO/IEC 1539-1:1997.

4      OTHER ITEMS

4.1    Action Requested at the Forthcoming SC22 Plenary

4.1.1  Change of Project Editor for Project 22.02.02

WG5 requests SC22 to appoint John Reid (UK) as Project Editor for the
revision of Part 2 of the Fortran Standard (ISO/IEC 1539-2:1994) in place
of Lawrie Schonfelder (UK), who was the Project Editor for the original
Standard.

4.1.2  Simultaneous CD Registration and Final CD Approval Ballots for
       Revision of ISO/IEC IS 1539-2:1994 (Project 22.02.02)

WG5 currently has approval to carry out simultaneous registration and
approval ballots for the forthcoming CD of the revised Part 2 of the
Fortran Standard (ISO/IEC IS 1539-2).  In view of the non-controversial
nature of the revision, and the fact that the changes have been widely
discussed within the Fortran community, WG5 requests to approval of SC22
to proceed directly to a Final CD ballot for this project.

4.1.3  Extension of Schedule for Project 22.02.02

The revision of ISO/IEC 1539-2:1994 was approved in 1995.  However, the
scope of that revision was changed in 1997 to extend the revision from a
non-normative annexe, as approved in 1995, to include revisions to the
normative parts of the Standard.  It is expected that the
document will be submitted for its first (and Final) CD ballot towards the
end of 1998 or, at the latest, in very early 1999.  WG5, therefore,
requests SC22 to authorise an extension of one year from that originally
approved in 1995.

4.1.4  Cancellation of Project 22.02.01.03

In view of the fact that WG5 has determined that the work involved in this
project (Interoperability between Fortran and C) will now be most
effectively carried out as part of the current revision of the base
Fortran language Standard, WG5 requests SC22 to authorise the
cancellation of project 22.02.01.03, and to formally record its thanks to
the Project Editor, Michael Hennecke (Germany), for his work on the
project, which forms the basis of the work being carried out by the
primary development body in this area.

4.1.5  Appreciation of Jerrold Wagener

WG5 requests SC22 to endorse WG5's appreciation of Jerrold (Jerry)
Wagener's contribution to the Standardization of Fortran over a period of
more than 20 years since the first meeting of the Fortran Experts' Group
in 1978, both through his many and invaluable contributions to
WG5, where he had never missed a meeting from 1978 until his retirement
from Standards activities earlier this year, and to WG5's Primary
Development Body, NCITS/J3, where he had served as Chair or Vice-Chair for
almost fifteen years prior to his retirement.

4.2    Recent Meetings

1998/6/8-12   Trollhättan, Sweden

4.3    Future Meetings

(Note that WG5 normally meets annually, with extra meetings being held
as/when necessary to process ballot comments or other high priority
activities which do not accord with the regular meeting schedule.  WG5's
Primary Development Body, ANSI NCITS/J3, meets quarterly.  Other work is
carried out via email.)

1999/6/14-18  Cadarache, France
2000/summer   Finland
2001/spring   USA (CD ballot resolution)
2001/summer   UK
2002/spring   tbd (FCD ballot resolution)

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