From rinehuls@access.digex.net Wed Aug 5 22:14:13 1998 Received: from access4.digex.net (qlrhmEbBUV1EY@access4.digex.net [205.197.245.195]) by dkuug.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA02260 for ; Wed, 5 Aug 1998 22:14:08 +0200 Received: from localhost (rinehuls@localhost) by access4.digex.net (8.8.4/8.8.4) with SMTP id QAA17745 for ; Wed, 5 Aug 1998 16:13:59 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 16:13:59 -0400 (EDT) From: "william c. rinehuls" To: sc22docs@dkuug.dk Subject: SC22 N2785 - WG13 Business Plan and Conveners Report for Plenary Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NOTE: My apologies. I sent the original version to the wrong web address. This is a retransmittal. ____________________ 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 N2785 TITLE: WG13 Business Plan and WG13 Convener's Report for the August 1998 JTC 1/ SC22 Plenary DATE ASSIGNED: 1998-08-05 SOURCE: Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 BACKWARD POINTER: 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/WG13 (Modula-2) PERIOD COVERED: June 1996 - May 1997 SUBMITTED BY: Convener of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG13 Dr. Martin Schoenhacker Vienna University of Technology Institute of Computer Graphics Karlsplatz 13/186-1 A-1040 Vienna, Austria Phone: +43 1 58801 4079 Fax: +43 1 5042583 EMail: schoenhacker@eiunix.tuwien.ac.at 1. MANAGEMENT SUMMARY 1.1 JTC1/SC22/WG13 STATEMENT OF SCOPE Development of ISO/IEC Standards related to the programming language Modula-2. 1.2 PROJECT REPORT 1.2.1 COMPLETED PROJECTS JTC1.22.18.01 -- IS 10514-1 Modula-2, Base Language IS 10514-1 was published in June 1996. So far, no serious problems have been reported. JTC1.22.18.02 -- DIS 10514-3 Objected Oriented Modula-2 DIS 10514-3 was submitted to ITTF for publication in March 1998, but has apparently not been published to date. JTC1.22.18.04 -- DIS 10514-2 Generics in Modula-2 DIS 10514-2 was submitted to ITTF for publication in March 1998, but has apparently not been published to date. 1.2.2 PROJECTS UNDERWAY JTC1.22.15436 -- Interfacing Modula-2 to C This project to produce a Type 3 Technical Report has been assigned to WG13 following a letter ballot in January 1997. It is currently in Working Draft stage, as there have been severe delays due to lack of participation in the project. WG13 would however like to investigate the matter further, but feels unable to set a clear deadline for proceeding to PDTR submission stage. It is however hoped that the project will have reached sufficient maturity by the end of 1998. 1.2.3 CANCELLED PROJECTS As requested by WG13 at the 1996 SC22 Plenary, the following projects formerly assigned to WG13 have been terminated: JTC1.22.03 -- Modula-2 to Posix Binding JTC1.22.05 -- Support for Commercial Programming in Modula-2 JTC1.22.06 -- Further support for Concurrent Programming in Modula-2 1.2.4 COOPERATION AND COMPETITION WG13 has always tried to cooperate with as many compiler writers as possible, and contacts to industry still work quite well. Although the general public is unfortunately not well aware of Modula-2, there are various important applications. In particular, the language is being used in the implementation of safety-critical and/or embedded systems, e.g. in car electronics and automated train control. Also, it is being used as the implementation language for a word processing package with an installed base of more than 20.000 copies, as well as for teaching purposes at various universities. Where appropriate, WG13 has established contact with other SC22 working groups. There is no apparent direct competition with any other efforts. 2.0 PERIOD REVIEW 2.1 MARKET REQUIREMENTS WG13 reacted to strong demands by the Modula-2 user community in preparing extensions to IS 10514-1. In particular, there was popular demand for Object Oriented Extensions, and it is hoped that the results of project JTC1.22.18.02 will lead to a uniform way of handling these extensions in the available compilers. With regard to Generics, there was popular demand mainly from academia which has also been met in project JTC1.22.18.04. Finally, the requirement for interfacing to libraries defined in the C language is being handled by project JTC1.22.15436. WG13 is currently not aware of any other demands or concerns regarding Modula-2. 2.2 ACHIEVEMENTS IS 10514-1 (Modula-2, Base Language) was published in June 1996. DIS 10514-2 (Generics in Modula-2) and DIS 10514-3 (Object Oriented Extensions) have been submitted to ITTF for publication in March 1998. The WG13 Web site can be found at http://sc22wg13.twi.tudelft.nl/ 2.3 RESOURCES Although resources in general are declining, the future of the current WG13 projects seems to be secured. There are project editors and backup project editors for all the active projects, as well as for the completed Base Language Standard. 3.0 FOCUS NEXT WORK PERIOD For the upcoming work period, work on the Technical Report on Interfacing Modula-2 to C will have to be progressed as quickly as possible. 3.1 DELIVERABLES Project JTC1.22.15436 is expected to produce a next working draft later this year, which will then be submitted to SC22 as a Type 3 PDTR, given that WG13 agrees on the maturity of the document. 3.2 STRATEGIES 3.2.1 RISKS Unexpectedly heavy technical comment could delay any of the strategies described above. However, no problems are anticipated. 3.2.2 OPPORTUNITIES To speed up the process, WG13 is considering concurrent PDTR registration and balloting as stated above. 3.3 WORK PROGRAM PRIORITIES Project JTC1.22.15436 is the only open project currently assigned to the working group. 4. OTHER ITEMS This section lists other items that are not part of the "Business Plan" but are appropriate for the Convener's Report. 4.1 PROJECT EDITORS The following individuals serve as project editors and backup project editors, respectively: JTC1.22.18.01 -- Modula-2, Base Language Cornelis Pronk (main), Martin Schoenhacker (backup) JTC1.22.18.02 -- Object Oriented Modula-2 Albert Wiedemann (main), John Lancaster (backup JTC1.22.18.04 -- Generics in Modula-2 Richard J. Sutcliffe (main), Cornelis Pronk (backup) JTC1.22.15436 -- Interfacing Modula-2 to C Eberhard Enger (main), Martin Schleusser (backup) 4.2 ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT DISTRIBUTION WG13 has been working over e-mail for a considerable time now, and recent decisions within the working group have mostly been taken using e-mail. This seems the only practical way for the future, in particular as travel budget appear to be shrinking everywhere. In addition to the e-mail reflector, WG13 has its own ftp and Web sites which have recently been expanded to offer more services (e.g. FAQ and Publications) to the Modula-2 community. 4.3 RECENT MEETINGS The 11th meeting of WG13 took place at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, United Kingdom, June 3rd-6th, 1996. The 12th meeting of WG13 took place at the University of Linz, Linz, Austria, March 17th-18th, 1997. 4.6 FUTURE MEETINGS Work on project JTC1.22.15436 will be progressed using e-mail. WG13 feels no need to schedule a meeting for this purpose alone. __________________ end of SC22 N2785 ___________________________________