From rinehuls@access.digex.net Sat Aug 1 00:24:35 1998 Received: from access1.digex.net (qlrhmEbBUV1EY@access1.digex.net [205.197.245.192]) by dkuug.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA28113 for ; Sat, 1 Aug 1998 00:24:33 +0200 Received: from localhost (rinehuls@localhost) by access1.digex.net (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP id SAA08785 for ; Fri, 31 Jul 1998 18:24:31 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 18:24:31 -0400 (EDT) From: "william c. rinehuls" To: sc22docs@dkuug.dk Subject: SC22 N2776 - WG19 Business Plan/Convener 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 N2776 TITLE: WG19 Business Plan and WG19 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: rinehuls@access.digex.net __________ end of title page; beginning of report _____________________ BUSINESS PLAN AND CONVENER'S REPORT ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG19 (Formal Specification Languages) PERIOD COVERED: SEPTEMBER 1997 to AUGUST 1998 SUBMITTED BY: John Wordsworth IBM United Kingdom Laboratories MP 094 Hursley Park Winchester Hants SO21 2JN UK Email: john_wordsworth@uk.ibm.com Phone: +44 1962 815700 1: MANAGEMENT SUMMARY 1.1: JTC1/SC22/WG19 Statement of Scope WG 19 is responsible for formal methods activities, formal specification languages, and syntactic metalanguages. It is currently responsible for two specification languages, VDM-SL and Z Notation, and for the syntactic metalanguage Extended BNF. 1.2: General Statement Most of the work of WG 19 is carried out by two rapporteur groups, VDM, and Z. The Working Group is responsible for the syntactic metalanguage project which at present involves maintenance of the standard (ISO/IEC 14977). The BSI version of this standard was used in conjunction with VDM-SL in the definition of the ISO standard for Modula-2, and to describe the concrete syntax of VDM-SL. It is also used in the latest working draft of the Z Notation rapporteur group. The high quality of the original standard has meant that maintenance work has been minimal. During 1998 the Convener, Derek Andrews, resigned, and an Acting Convener, John Wordsworth, was appointed. Mr Wordsworth has since been confirmed as Convener of the Working Group. No meetings of the Working Group have been held in 1998, though the new Convener has been in touch with members by Email to assure himself of their interest in the work of the group. The meeting planned for September 1998 has been postponed. When joint business is identified, a meeting of the Working Group will be scheduled in the first half of 1999. The Z rapporteur group has had several meetings, as noted in the group's report. The reports of the two rapporteur groups follow. VDM-SL RAPPORTEUR GROUP 1: Management Summary 1.1: JTC1/SC22/WG19 VDM-SL Statement of Scope This rapporteur group is responsible for the VDM-SL standard and related activities. 1.2: Project Report 1.2.1: Completed Projects The VDM-SL (Part 1) Standard was published in December 1996. No new projects have been completed in the reporting period. 1.2.2: Projects Under Way The rapporteur group will continue its work on this project by setting up a mechanism to consider corrections and how a technical corrigendum will be made available (if and as necessary). Some minor typographical errors have been discovered and noted. When the list is larger, it will be issued. (It currently contains five entries --- all minor.) Work on Part II of the Standard continues slowly, a review of the various approaches was completed and a work plan constructed (see below). 1.2.3: Cancelled Projects There are no cancelled projects. 1.2.4: Cooperation and Competition The WG19-VDM group involves collaborative work of six participating P-members: UK, Denmark, Holland, France, Japan and the USA. The Standardization work was also supported by the EU by various grants. There are no competitive activities. 2: Period Review 2.1: Market Requirements The increase in the need for safety-critical systems will imply increased interest in formal languages. In previous reports it was stated that the main task of the VDM-SL working group (apart from routine maintenance of the Standard) was the production of part 2 of the Standard which is concerned with the introduction of some sort of modularization In the previous reports from this group, the possibility of adding an Object Oriented Structure to VDM-SL was discussed The original proposal for the second part of the VDM-SL Standard was clear that an extension to VDM-SL was required to provide a mechanism to partition (large) specifications. This proposal was part of the VDM-SL Standard; written as an appendix. Work on Standardizing an existing language was started, but Industrial interest focused on an alternative extension that was part of an Esprit project. Work on modules had been undertaken by members of the working group, especially John Fitzgerald and the convener --- this work was to look at various mechanisms for extending VDM-Sl with a modular structure. There is European interest (the Netherlands, Denmark and the UK) in OO extensions to VDM-SL and several industrial users are working on such extensions under the umbrella of VDM++. Thus it is clear that OO extensions are required by industry, and should be the subject of the second VDM-SL Standard rather than just extensions for Modules. There is also work being undertaken in the USA on using formal methods in specifying OO systems. The VDM-SL subgroup is currently involved in reviewing the future direction of the second phase of the Standard. Work has been carried out by Email and documents describing VDM++ have been circulated to subgroup members. The VDM++ language is currently being reviewed in the light of industrial experience using it and an updated version will be circulated in the new year. If the subgroup feels that the language is stable enough (there has been little change to the basic language since its inception four years ago) then it is intended that the language description be circulated as a CD for the OO extensions to VDM-SL. 2.2: Achievements Decision to proceed to extend VDM-SL with object-oriented features. 2.3: Resources The second part of the standard will be based on work produced by an EC research and development program. 3: Focus for Next Work Period The original work plan for the project to produce Part II of the VDM-SL Standard consists of the following three major tasks: - task 1 : The OO structuring This is concerned with adding classes and related constructs to VDM-SL so that it can support the specification of Object Oriented systems. - task 2 : The parallel features The semantics of objects are such that in specifications, if an execution model is used to provide informal semantics, they require `concurrency'. Thus parallel features need to be considered for the model to be as general as possible. - task 3 : The Real time features An OO specification must have a interpretation that allows concurrency, thus a possible refinement is to preserve the parallelism inherent in an OO specification, this implies that real-time features should be added as part of this effort. There is a possible additional task 4: VDM refinement rules and their proof could be included if the progress on the other topics progresses quickly --- this was always part of the Standardization effort. It is likely that tasks 3 and 4 will be out-plan; the Second part of the Standard will only address those extensions covered by tasks 1) and 2). 3.1: Deliverables The deliverables time schedule: OO structuring proposal and concurrency proposal produced and distributed end 1997. Work is currently in hand reviewing this. New version to be distributed to committee end 1998. 3.2: Strategies A mechanism for dealing with defect reports against the VDM-SL Standard will be put in place as and when necessary. (None have occurred at this time.) 3.2.1: Risks Lack of EC funding caused a delay in the work schedule described in last year's report. 3.2.2: Opportunities 3.3: Work Program Priorities Tasks 1.1 and 1.2 of the work plan. 4: Other Items 4.1: Possible Action Requests at Forthcoming Plenary To continue work on Part 2 of the standard. 4.2: Project Editor The Project Editor for the VDM-SL project is unchanged, though he has changed his addresses and telephone numbers: Derek Andrews School of Information Systems Nene - University College Northampton Park Campus Broughton Green Road Northampton NN2 7AL UK Email: derek.andrews@nene.ac.uk Tel: (+44) 1604 735500 Ext 2806 Mobile: (+44) 411 638 129 4.3: Electronic Document Distribution Nearly all work is of this subgroup is carried out by Email, it is intended to continue this. 4.4: Recent Meetings There have been no recent meetings. 4.5: Future Meetings Electronic meeting in October, date to be fixed. Z NOTATION RAPPORTEUR GROUP 1: Management Summary 1.1: JTC1/SC22/WG19 Z Notation Statement of Scope This rapporteur group is responsible for the Z Notation Standard and related activities. 1.2: Project Report 1.2.1: Completed Projects The group has prepared an interim working draft based on the CD submitted in September 1995. The new draft contains many changes made in response to comments received on the first CD. 1.2.2: Projects Under Way To finalize the changes to the annexes, which contain a summary of all the technical material (lexis, syntaxes, semantic equations, type inference rules, etc.) To prepare the manual pages for the language constructs based on the material in the annexes. To submit the whole as a Committee Draft. 1.2.3: Cancelled Projects There are no cancelled projects. 1.2.4: Cooperation and Competition The work of the group continues to involve the participation of members from the UK, USA, Australia, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand. The work of the group has been assisted by grants from industrial and government agencies in the USA and Europe. There are no competitive activities. 2: Period Review 2.1: Market Requirements The increasing interest in safety-critical systems and in secure systems suggests a continuing interest in the use of the Z notation. Industrial users of the Z notation continue to exert pressure for a standard, and contribute people's time to the work,. 2.2: Achievements An interim draft of the next CD has been produced as a working document for the use of the group. 2.3: Resources Lack of funding for the Project Editor led to some delay in the work of producing the interim draft. A new Project Editor has been proposed. 3: Focus for Next Work Period To proceed to completion of the next CD. The group hopes that this second CD will be able to proceed to Draft International Standard status with little amendment. The breakdown is as follows: Task 1. To complete the normative annexes. Task 2. To produce the manual pages based on the content of the normative annexes. Task 3. To make, review, and accept proposals to clear up any outstanding technical issues. 3.1: Deliverables The next CD, like its predecessor, consists of two main normative parts: Manual pages, which discuss the notation construct by construct, and annexes that summarize the technical material on which the manual pages are based. The first deliverable for the next reporting period is the annexes, which are to be complete, apart from some minor technical issues, by the end of November 1998. The second deliverable is the completed CD for review by the Working Group to be available in May 1999. 3.2: Strategies The project editor is to complete the annexes, which contain a summary of all the technical material of the standard, in accordance with the changes approved by the group. Notice of proposals for changes are distributed to members of the group, who can retrieve the technical papers by FTP. Email comments and discussions lead to the proposal being accepted if their is a consensus. 3.2.1: Risks The Acting Project Editor has little experience of standards work. Owing to the technically complex nature of the source material for the working committee draft, there is likely to be some delay in transferring skills from one project editor to another. 3.2.2: Opportunities The content of the next CD is near enough to stability for the language to be made available on an experimental basis to other standards writers. 3.3: Work Program Priorities The tasks have been listed in priority order. 4: Other Items 4.1: Possible Action Requests at Forthcoming Plenary To continue the work of drafting the next CD in accordance with plan already described. To confirm the appointment of Dr Ian Toyn as Project Editor for the Z Notation. 4.2: Project Editor During the reporting period the project editor, Mr John Nicholls, resigned, and Dr Ian Toyn was appointed Acting Project Editor. The plenary will be asked to approve the appointment of the new Project Editor: Dr Ian Toyn, Dept of Computer Science, University of York, York YO1 5DD UK Email: ian@minster.cs.york.ac.uk Phone: +44 1904 433386 4.3: Electronic Document Distribution Some of the work of the group is carried out by Email. Electronic versions of working documents are maintained in FTP sites, and a register of current documents, with some Internet links, is maintained on a Web site. 4.4: Recent Meetings In the reporting period the group has met approximately every two months at various locations in the UK. 4.5: Future Meetings Meetings are planned for September (in Berlin) and November (in the UK). Other meetings will be arranged as required to complete the work of drafting the next CD. ___________________ end of SC22 N2776 _________________________________