Subject: SC22 N2775 - WG4 Convener Report/Business Plan for Plenary

From: "william c. rinehuls" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 18:16:09 -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
N2775

TITLE:
WG4 Business Plan and WG4 Convener's Report for the August 1998 JTC 1/
SC22 Plenary

DATE ASSIGNED:
1998-07-31

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

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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                       Business Plan and Convener's Report
                ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG4  (Programming Language COBOL)

PERIOD COVERED:
      September 1997 - July 1998

SUBMITTED BY:
      Ann Wallace
      Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG4
      IBM DZ6/E22
      P.O. Box 49023
      San Jose, CA 95161-9023
      Phone:    +1 408 463-4344
      Fax:      +2 408 463-2425
      Email:    [email-masked]

1.    MANAGEMENT SUMMARY

1.1   JTC1/SC22/WG4 STATEMENT OF SCOPE
      Development and maintenance of ISO/IEC standards related to
      programming language COBOL.

1.2   PROJECT REPORT
      1.2.1   COMPLETED PROJECTS
      None in this period.

      1.2.2 PROJECTS UNDERWAY
      22.01.07 Revision of ISO 1989:1985 --
      Combined CD registration and CD ballots N2260 closed in January
      1997.  The summary of voting is contained in N2382.  WG4 responded
      to comments in N2616.  Technical development of changes in
      response to accepted comments is nearly complete and the draft is
      now undergoing a quality review in WG4 and J4.  Following rework
      resulting from that review, the draft will be forwarded for Final
      CD ballot.

      1.2.3   MAINTENANCE ACTIVITIES
      None in this period.

      1.2.4   CANCELLED PROJECTS
      None

      1.2.5   COOPERATION AND COMPETITION
      WG4 cooperates closely with NCITS COBOL Technical Committee J4,
      to whom SC22 has delegated the technical development and maintenance
      of COBOL.

      WG4 has liaisons with the following groups:
          Open Group COBOL working group (category C) - Michel Dessier of Bull
                      France
          SC22/WG20 - Ann Wallace
          SC22/WG11 - Don Nelson

      WG4 is dependent on WG20's TR 10176 for specification of extended
      characters in identifiers, on 14651 for cultural ordering support, and
      on 14652 for locale specifications.

2.    PERIOD REVIEW
2.1   MARKET REQUIREMENTS
      COBOL continues to be widely used for new development and for
      enhancement and re-engineering of existing applications.  Many factors
      drive the market for COBOL standardization:

      a.  Deployment of applications to workstations and distributed
          environments and the growth of COBOL in Unix environments has
          generated requirements for new features in the language.  These
          needs have been met by implementor extensions to the language, in
          different ways by different implementors, leading to a need for
          post-implementation standardization.

      b.  Market pressure for new technology led COBOL vendors to cooperate on
          object-oriented design through the standardization process.  Early
          implementations of the object-oriented features in the draft are now
          available and users are designing them into new applications.

      c.  Growth of COBOL in the Unix market led X/Open to develop a Common
          Application Environment (CAE) providing a portable definition of
          features essential in a Unix environment but lacking in standard
          COBOL.  The need for portability with non-Unix platforms has
          resulted in a requirement for inclusion of these features in the
          international standard.

      d.  While business-oriented features are a main-stay of COBOL, the many
          services and interfaces in today's environments demand a wider
          variety of data types and better interoperation of COBOL with other
          programming languages.

      e.  Technology advances and resulting spread of computers to end users
          makes it mandatory that computer systems adapt to the languages of
          users.  This gives rise to a need in COBOL for support of large
          character sets and cultural adaptibility.

      f.  The impact of year 2000 date handling generated a requirement for
          portable year-2000 features in the draft standard, which are now
          being widely implemented.

      The current draft revision addresses a great many of the market
      requirements for COBOL, but not all of them.  Even as the draft standard
      progresses, new requirements are evolving.  With the current trend to
      web-based operation, users are beginning to reconfigure existing COBOL
      applications as servers integrated with web clients.  COBOL vendors are
      starting to introduce language extensions to support this environment.
      Thus, continued evolution of the international standard for COBOL is
      essential to provide the benefits of new technolgies and new
      environments to COBOL users worldwide.

2.2   ACHIEVEMENTS
      WG4 produced N2616, Disposition of Comments Report, in response to
      comments on CD 1 and has nearly completed technical changes in response
      to accepted comments.

2.3   RESOURCES
      WG4 meets as needed, usually once a year.  Six countries participate in
      meetings:  Canada, Germany, Japan, The Netherlands, the UK, and the USA.

      J4 has 11 members participating in detailed technical development, 7 COBOL
      vendor organizations and 4 user organizations.

3.    FOCUS NEXT WORK PERIOD
      WG4 will focus on preparing the draft standard for Final CD ballot.
      During the FCD ballot period, WG4 will consider plans for development of
      an object-oriented class library technical report and will process any
      defect reports submitted against the current COBOL standard.

3.1   DELIVERABLES
      WG4 anticipates delivering a document for Final CD ballot 4/99.

3.2   STRATEGIES
      The focus will be on improving quality of the draft through review by
      WG4, J4, and other technical contributors.

3.3   RISKS
      There are no anticipated risks at this time.

3.4   OPPORTUNITIES
      None

3.5   WORK PROGRAM PRIORITIES
      WG4's highest priority is preparation of the draft for Final CD ballot.
      The next priority is development of an object-oriented class library
      technical report, followed by processing of defects reported for the
      current standard.

4.    OTHER ITEMS
      (CONVENOR'S REPORT ON ITEMS NOT INCLUDED IN THE BUSINESS PLAN)

4.1   ACTIONS REQUESTS AT THE FORTHCOMING PLENARY
      None

4.2   SCHEDULE
      Project 22.01.07 appears to be relatively on schedule.  Although
      significant effort will be required to remain on schedule, no changes
      are foreseen at this time.

4.3   WG4 MEETINGS
      4.3.1  MEETINGS IN CURRENT REPORTING PERIOD
      None

      4.3.2  FUTURE MEETINGS
      November 16-20, 1998, Carmel, CA.  USA  (co-located with J4 meeting)
      November 14-19, 1999  -- tentative

4.4   ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT DISTRIBUTION
      Most WG4 documents are distributed by posting on the web site provided
      by Denmark.

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