Subject: Document SC22 N2185

From: "william c. rinehuls" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 16:29:20 -0400 (EDT)

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

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22
N2185

June 1996

TITLE:                 Minutes of SC22/WG21 (C++) Meeting on 
                       March 10-15, 1996 in Santa Cruz, California,
                       USA

SOURCE:                Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22

WORK ITEM:             N/A

STATUS:                N/A

CROSS REFERENCE:       N/A

DOCUMENT TYPE:         Minutes of WG21 Meeting

ACTION:                TO SC22 Member Bodies for information.

Address reply to:
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 Secretariat
William C. Rinehuls
8457 Rushing Creek Court
Springfield, VA 22153  USA
Tel:  +1 (703) 912-9680
Fax:  +1 (703) 912-2973
email:  [email-masked]

____________________________________________________________________________

                                     Document Number: WG21/N0879
                                                      X3J16/96-0061
                                                Date: 12 March 1996
                                             Project: Programming Language C++
                                            Reply to: Dan Saks
                                                      [email-masked]

                                    Minutes
                     ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG21 Meeting No. 15
                              10 - 15 March 1996

Dream Inn Resort
175 West Cliff Drive
Santa Cruz, CA 95060 USA

1     Opening and introductions

      Harbison convened the meeting at 18:05 (PST) on Sunday, 10 March 1996.

1.1   Welcome from host

1.2   Roll call of technical experts

      The attendance list appears as Appendix A.

1.3   Select meeting chair

      Harbison offered to chair the meeting, and no one objected.

1.4   Select meeting secretary

      Harbison affirmed that Saks would be the secretary for this meeting.

1.5   Select language

      Harbison suggested that WG21 conduct this meeting in English, and no one
      objected.

1.6   Adopt agenda

      Harbison presented the proposed agenda SD-0 (revised 2 March 1996), and
      recommended adding the following items:

      3.4   Copyright Issues
      3.5   Meetings and Mailings

      WG21 accepted the agenda with these changes.

1.7   Select drafting committee

      As usual, Saks will coordinate the drafting committee.  Corfield,
      Hartinger, Rumsby and Unruh offered to participate.

1.8   Approve minutes from previous meeting

      Saks submitted N0816 = 95-0216 for approval as the minutes of the
      previous meeting.  WG21 accepted the minutes without change.

1.9   Review action items from previous meeting

      None.

1.10  Recognize documents

      None.

2     Status, liaison and action item reports

2.1   Small group status reports

      None.

2.2   Liaison Reports

2.2.1 SC22/WG11 (Binding Techniques) report

      No report.

2.2.2 SC22/WG14 (C) report

      Deferred to the joint meeting with X3J16.

2.2.3 SC22/WG15 (POSIX) report

      No report.

2.2.4 SC22/WG20 (Internationalization) report

      No report.

3     New Business

3.1   Review changes to working paper

      Deferred to the joint session with X3J16.

3.2   CD Comment Resolution Status

      Harbison said he must prepare a written "disposition of comments" for
      SC22, describing WG21's response to each NB (national body) comment from
      the CD ballot.  He said he expected each NB to convey to him this week
      whether WG21 has adequately addressed its comments.

3.3   Comment Resolution Procedure

      Harbison asked if anyone had concerns about how their NB comments would
      be addressed.

      Koenig said he understood we could still make substantive changes to the
      draft to correct problems during ballot.  Harbison said we could, but we
      should try to avoid it.

      Koenig said there was a proposal before WG21+X3J16 to abolish separate
      compilation of templates.  If that proposal were to pass, the ensuing
      editing work would delay the standard at least one and maybe two
      meetings.  However, since that proposal did not address any NB require-
      ments, we might not need to address it.  Hartinger said the template
      compilation model was one of Germany's concerns.

      Koenig said that after the Tokyo meeting, Corfield said he'd look at the
      WP (working paper) to identify the outstanding problems in the template
      specification.  Corfield later reported via email that he found no
      problems -- that the template clause was clear enough.  Koenig also said
      some people have claimed that templates can't be implemented efficiently
      (at translation-time, not run-time).  Koenig said he didn't think any-
      thing would be gained by rewriting WP to allow more efficient implemen-
      tations.  He thought the current specification allowed implementations
      that were efficient-enough.

      Stroustrup said separate compilation of templates is important and has
      been part of the template specification since the beginning.  We should
      not remove it.

      Corfield said that there are at least two and perhaps three national
      bodies that would vote against the CD if separate compilation of
      templates were to disappear.  He explained that the problem is really
      one of name lookup.  All the problems with separate compilation of
      templates are also problems with compiling a single source file using
      multiple namespaces.  Unruh replied that there is at least one problem
      with the separation model that is not a problem with the inclusion
      model.  He presented that problem to the Core III WG in Tokyo.

      Harbison asked if anyone had concerns about the library.

      Koenig said that, as it stands, it does not allow a "set of pointers".
      Stroustrup said he has one paper on a problem in the library that needs
      to be addressed, but otherwise, he likes the library.

      Unruh said that, just because there are no major issues in the library,
      that doesn't mean the library is good enough.  Also, at present, there's
      no compiler that can compile the entire library.  There are parts of the
      library specification that are syntactically incorrect.  Also, there's a
      problem with the interaction of constness and templates.  He didn't
      think we could iron out all the problems until compilers can actually
      compile the library and people can use it.

      Hartinger said that name binding during template compilation is still a
      concern for the German delegation.

      Koshida said Japan is concerned about wide characters in strings and
      streams.  He said they are generally satisfied, but a few minor problems
      remain.  He said Japan is not concerned about the template issues, but
      they do have concerns about the proposal for extended characters in
      identifiers.

      Clamage said he was concerned about the sheer number of issues on the
      Library issues lists.  He didn't see how we could close them all this
      meeting.

      Harbison said it appears that there are three issues of particular
      concern to the NBs:
      --  Extended Characters
      --  The State of the Library
      --  Template Compilation Model
      We need to make sure there's a procedure in place to address each of
      these at this meeting.

      Harbison asked the NBs where they stand on each issue:

      --  Extended Characters

      Plum said he discussed the extended character proposal with Kumagai, and
      he (Plum) believes there's no real problem; small changes will make
      everyone happy.  He said we still need to work on it this week, but we
      should be able to resolve the issues this week.  The work will be done
      in the C Compatibility WG.

      Plum later suggested we will have fewer proposals for extensions and
      changes if we recommend a CD ballot rather than slip the schedule.

      --  The State of the Library

      Kiefer said he had no strong opinion about the state of the library, but
      he did notice that the issues list doubled in size between the last
      meeting and this one.

      Plauger agreed that the sheer number of details is the enemy of getting
      the library to converge.  That's his biggest concern.  No one issue is
      that great.  Rumsby concurred.  Corfield also concurred, adding that it
      was unlikely we would get through all the small issues this week.

      Koenig noted that the question was really whether we were likely to need
      a third CD.  Corfield said the UK would rather not vote on advancing the
      second CD until this summer's meeting in Stockholm.

      Harbison said he heard concerns, but no one said drastic action is
      needed.

      Stroustrup agreed with Plum that going to another CD ballot will cut
      down on the proposals for changes.

      For the record, Harbison raised the issue of splitting the library
      standard from the language standard, and observed that no one supported
      it.

      --  Template Compilation Model

      Hartinger said he thought that the current specification for separate
      compilation of templates is a problem for both implementors and users.
      For users, the problem is error reporting; for implementors, it's
      implementability.

      Corfield said the template compilation model is no longer a problem for
      the UK.

      Hartinger explained that, if the separate-compilation model can be
      specified to satisfy their needs, then it need not be eliminated.  Unruh
      said that, given choice between removing separate compilation of
      templates and leaving the WP as is, Germany would vote to remove.

      Bruck said Sweden's position is that if the model were changed, they
      would vote "no" on the CD.

      Harbison observed that this might be a "blocking" issue.  He added that
      we don't know what the US position on this will be.

      Lajoie said the Core III WG (chaired by Gibbons) would discuss this
      issue.  Unruh preferred to address this in a technical session on Monday
      evening, rather than in a WG session.  WG21 discussed whether to address
      this issue in Core III or in an evening technical session.  Lenkov
      preferred the technical session; Bruck preferred Core III.  Lenkov
      suggested spending no more than an hour on the issue in Core III, and if
      no progress is made, continuing in the technical session.

      Hartinger said something is wrong if a minority feels they must operate
      outside the committee to have their needs addressed.  Plauger explained
      that, if the majority feels that nothing they do will satisfy the
      minority, then the majority must document the steps they've taken to
      satisfy the minority.

      Harbison agreed with Lenkov, that Core III should discuss template
      compilation models on Monday afternoon, limiting discussion to about an
      hour.  If more discussion is needed, it should continue in the evening
      technical session.  Bruck said he thought this was the wrong way to
      handle this.

3.4   Copyright Status

      Harbison said we have the precedents we need to publish the CD elec-
      tronically to the public during the CD ballot.  It's not clear if we
      have such permission with a draft that is not a CD, or any other
      committee document.

3.5   Meetings and Mailings

      Harbison announced that Digital offered to host the March '97 meeting in
      Nashua, NH, USA.

4     Closing process

4.1   Select chair for next meeting

      Harbison offered to prepare the agenda for the next meeting and act as
      chair.

4.2   Establish next agenda

      The committee's agenda will be essentially the same as this one.

4.3   Future meetings

      See item 3.5.

4.4   Future mailings

      No discussion.

4.5   Assign document number(s)

      None.

4.6   Review action items

      None.

4.7   Any other business

      None.

4.8   Thanks to host

      WG21 thanked Borland for hosting the meeting.

4.9   Adjournment

WG21 recessed at 20:15 on Sunday and reconvened in joint session with X3J16.
See the corresponding WG21+X3J16 meeting minutes (N0880 = 96-0062).

Appendix A - Attendance

Name                Affiliation; (*) = Head of Delegation

Lajoie, Josee       Canada (*)
Harbison, Sam       Convener
Stroustrup, Bjarne  Courtesy
Hartinger, Roland   Germany (*)
Kiefer, Konrad      Germany
Unruh, Erwin        Germany
Koshida, Ichiro     Japan (*)
Bruck, Dag          Sweden (*)
Corfield, Sean      UK
Glassborow, Francis UK
Rumsby, Steve       UK (*)
Southworth, Mark    UK
Clamage, Steve      USA
Koenig, Andrew      USA / Project Editor
Lenkov, Dmitry      USA
Plum, Thomas        USA (*)
Saks, Dan           USA / Secretary
Plauger, P. J.      WG14 Convener

_____________________________end of N2185_______________________________