From rinehuls@access.digex.net Fri Jul 17 18:50:19 1998 Received: from access5.digex.net (qlrhmEbBUV1EY@access5.digex.net [205.197.245.196]) by dkuug.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id SAA01271 for ; Fri, 17 Jul 1998 18:50:17 +0200 Received: from localhost (rinehuls@localhost) by access5.digex.net (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP id MAA04723 for ; Fri, 17 Jul 1998 12:50:13 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 12:50:12 -0400 (EDT) From: "william c. rinehuls" To: sc22docs@dkuug.dk Subject: SC22 N2764 - FIMS Project Editor 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 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: rinehuls@access.digex.net _____________________ end of title page; beginning of report _________ 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 ________________ end of SC22 N2764 ________________________________