Subject: SC22 N2764 - FIMS Project Editor Report for Plenary

From: "william c. rinehuls" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 12:50:12 -0400 (EDT)

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ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22
Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces
Secretariat:  U.S.A.  (ANSI)

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22
N2764

TITLE:
FIMS Project Editor's Report for the August 1998 JTC 1/SC22 Plenary -
PLENARY AGENDA ITEM

DATE ASSIGNED:
1998-07-14

SOURCE:
Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22

BACKWARD POINTER:
N/A

DOCUMENT TYPE:
Project Editor's Report

PROJECT NUMBER:
JTC 1.22.27.01

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

ACTION IDENTIFIER:
FYI

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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                         FIMS PROJECT EDITOR REPORT
                   FOR THE AUGUST 1998 JTC 1/SC22 PLENARY

This is the editor's report on FIMS for this year's SC22 plenary
meeting. I have been asked to give a recommendation for the upcoming
five year review.

Shortly after the adoption of ISO 11730 (and ANSI 11730) the two major
supporters of the standard lost interest in promoting the standard any
further. One was a major vendor with an product based on 11730, with
many users (tens of thousands of development licenses and probably close
to a million end users). The vendor downsized all of its software
efforts, including its commitment to expand the 11730-based product. The
other supporter was a very large U.S. Government agency that originally
planned on requiring its use throughout the agency; the agency changed
its mind (independently of the vendor action).

I know of no other activity.

The U.S. body that developed the standard (CODASYL) is no longer in
existence.

SC22 should know that the FIMS effort wasn't doomed because it was old
technology. On the contrary, it was too early in many areas and the
right people never looked at it for the use it was intended for.
Everything that went into FIMS was designed for distributed computing.
It made the split between end-user-client and server (first two levels
of three-tier computing) easier and more efficient, concepts that have
recently become more obvious in WWW usage.

HTML and HTML forms came along and completely ignored all the ideas that
we put into FIMS; they are now still trying to catch up. FIMS had the
ability of a single layout that was good for any work station, including
tables, variable fonts, national character sets, callbacks with
parameters, modifiable screens based on data and better: multiple
screens per request. Even more importantly, it had local navigation and
"active" components, via the FIMS local procedural parts on each field
and its menu/listbox/radio (and more) constructs. Web pages now use
JavaScript and active components (still non-standard) to do some of the
same things, all with less capability since the validation and
navigation allowed are extremely weak.

Oh well, progress is never guaranteed.

I personally have changed employment and am not in a position to
continue as editor. This will be my last report.

My final recommendation is that 11730 not be recommended for
reaffirmation. It should be retired.

Respectfully submitted,

Dan Frantz
Project Editor, FIMS

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