Subject: SC22 N2804 - USA National Body Activity Report for Plenary

From: "william c. rinehuls" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1998 18:12:14 -0400 (EDT)

______________________ 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
N2804

TITLE:
United States of America National Body Activity Report for the August 1998
SC22 Plenary

DATE ASSIGNED:
1998-08-24

SOURCE:
Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22

BACKWARD POINTER:
N/A

DOCUMENT TYPE:
National Body Activity Report

PROJECT NUMBER:
N/A

STATUS:
Discussion of this document will be an agenda item 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]

____________ end of title page; beginning of report ___________________

To:	ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22
From:	USA

Subject:	USA JTC1/SC22 National Activity Report for 1998

This document is the USA's JTC1/SC22 National Activity Report to the 
1998 plenary meeting of SC22. This report consists of two parts.  The 
first part discusses US activity in programming languages for which 
JTC1/SC22 has parallel projects.  The title of first part is 
"COMMON PROJECTS".  The second part of this report discusses US 
activity in programming languages for which JTC1/SC22 has no parallel 
projects.  The title of the second part is "NEW PROJECTS".

COMMON PROJECTS

The programming language standards development projects listed in this 
portion of the report are active within the USA and have corresponding 
JTC1/SC22 activity.

Pascal [J9]   Updated for 1998

The responsibility for maintenance of the American National Standards 
and ISO/IEC standards for the programming languages Pascal and Extended
Pascal rests with J9.  This includes the Technical Report on 
Object-Oriented Extensions to Pascal [X3/TR-013:1994], the 
international Pascal standard, ISO/IEC 7185:1990, and the Extended 
Pascal standards X3.160-1989 and ISO/IEC 10206:1991.

COBOL [JTC1/SC22/WG4, J4]   Updated for 1998

Technical committee J4 is responsible for the development of the US
and international standards for COBOL (ANSI X3.23-1985, ISO 1989),
the development of related amendments and technical corrigenda, and
the processing of related defect reports.

J4 continues development of a revision to ANSI X3.23-1985, ISO/IEC
1989:1985, which completed the second U.S. public review and the
ISO/IEC combined CD registration and CD ballot in January 1997.
Responses to comments were developed and J4 has nearly completed
technical changes in response to accepted comments.  A draft has
recently been distributed to WG4 and J4 for a quality review.

Features included in the COBOL revision are cultural adaptability,
object orientation, enhanced inter-operability with other programming
languages, new data types (bit, floating point, native binary,
pointers), strong typing, enhanced portability of arithmetic, support for
multiple-octet coded character sets, a screen handling facility, data
validation support, conditional compilation, exception handling, storage
allocation support, and file sharing with record locking.

Following the quality draft and any subsequent rework, the draft will
be submitted to WG4 for forwarding to SC22 for Final CD ballot.

Fortran [JTC1/SC22/WG5, J3]

J3 continued as the group appointed by SC22/WG5 that will maintain the 
Fortran standard--providing errata, interpretations, and amendments to 
the standard.  To accomplish this, J3 has established the 006 document.
J3 maintains this document in such a form that extractions can be made 
that satisfy the defect management requirements of both ANSI and ISO.
The process continues for forwarding these extractions to SC22/WG5, as
preparation for official adoption by ISO. 
 
J3 continued its close cooperation with SC22/WG5.  SC22/WG5 will 
continue to act as the requirements body.  J3 will continue to act as 
the implementation body.  Both J3 and SC22/WG5 periodically review the 
progress of the implementation. 
 
J3 and SC22/WG5 having agreed that an evolutionary successor to Fortran
90 emphasizing corrections, clarifications, and interpretations, with 
minimal technical enhancements, be produced in the 1995/96 time frame,
produced "Fortran 95". The document is currently in the final stages of
approval. An evolutionary successor involving relatively greater 
technical enhancements is envisioned for the 2000/01 time frame. 
(Note: J3 delivered the 1995/96 revision draft document to WG5 in May 
of 1995). The cutoff for receiving suggestions for the 2000 standard 
has essentially already occurred. There was a joint WG5 meeting to 
establish the feature list candidates for "F2K". As always, J3 
maintains a database of US requirements and continues to solicit 
input from the US public. 
  
The J3 committee is continuing its effort to improve the process of 
standards production via such mechanisms as greater use of Email and 
easier access to electronic copies of draft documents.  Also under 
consideration are improvements to the document style. Paper 
distributions have ceased. All committee papers are circulated 
electronically. 
  
With the increasing need for integration, the future will also see 
continuing J3 cooperation with other (formal and informal) standards 
committees.  Some examples are: parallelism (HPFF), operating systems 
(POSIX IEEE P1003.9, SC22/WG15), cross-language issues (T2, SC22/WG11),
and graphics (H3, SC24). 

Ada [JTC1/SC22/WG9, SC22/WG9 TAG]  Updated for 1998

On-Going Activities

Supported the recommendation that the contents of 11430 and 11729 are
substantively subsumed by the subsequent approval of the 1995 revision of
8652. WG9 has requested that these standards be withdrawn at the 
conclusion of their five-year review period.

Agreed with the determination that the revision of 12227 is currently
unnecessary;  this decision will be reconsidered periodically. 

Supported the recommendation that the contents of 11735 are substantively
subsumed by the 1995 revision of 8652. This Technical Report will be
withdrawn when usage of the 1987 version of the Ada language has
diminished; this may be a very long time (25 years).

Approved the submission of IS 13813 - Generic packages of real and
complex type declarations and basic operations for Ada (including vector
and matrix types) to ISO Central Secretariat for publication.

Approved the submission of IS 13814 Generic package of complex elementary
functions for Ada to ISO Central Secretariat for publication.

Provided approval and comments to the FCD 15291 Ada Semantic Interface
Specification (ASIS) ballot.

Provided approval and comments to the WD 15942 Guidance for the use of
the Ada Programming Language in High Integrity Systems.

Bindings [JTC1/SC22/WG11, T2]

Technical committee T2 is responsible for US standards development 
concerning data interchange and bindings.  A portion of that work 
corresponds to JTC1/SC22 and the rest corresponds to JTC1/SC21
activities.  The work of T2 that is related to JTC1/SC22 covers
definitions of data types, procedure calls and arithmetic, independent of
any particular processing language.  Activities of T2 corresponding to
JTC1/SC21 include information transfer syntax formats and description
techniques, and a technique for interchange of conceptual schema.

Modula-2 [JTC1/SC22/WG13, P1151]

The standards development activities for Modula-2 are being carried out
in project P1151 of the Microprocessor Standards Committee (MSC) of the
Computer Society (CS) of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic
Engineers (IEEE).

C [JTC1/SC22/WG14, J11]   Updated for 1998

J11 continued work on revising the ISO/IEC 9899:1990 standard, making
major technical contributions as well as supplying the project editor.
CD1 was produced in December '97. All public comments from this were
addressed at the June '98 meeting. CD2 (FCD) is scheduled to begin
balloting in September '98.  All known Defect Reports have been closed
out.

POSIX [JTC1/SC22/WG15, P1003]   Updated for 1998

Standardization of POSIX is being pursued within the Portable
Applications and Systems Committee (PASC, formerly TCOS) of the Computer
Society (CS) of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
(IEEE).  

For more information, see http//www.pasc.org/.

System Services Group

1003.1  POSIX System Application Programming Interfaces
          status: approved 1990 [ISO/IEC 9945-11990]
           Re-affirmed, 10/95
1003.1a Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for corrections and 
        supplementary services and interfaces
          status: in ballot
1003.1b (JTC1 22.21.01.02) - Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for POSIX
        Real-Time Services [formerly 1003.4]
          status: approved    9/93
1003.1c Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for POSIX Threads [formerly
	1003.4a],
          status: approved 6/95
1003.1d (JTC1 22.40) - Second Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for POSIX
        Real-Time Services [formerly 1003.4b], 
          status: in ballot
1003.1f (JTC1 22.21.01.03.01) - Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for
	Transparent File Access [formerly 1003.8], 
          status: project withdrawn
1003.1h Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for Fault Tolerance,
          status: in ballot
1003.1i Corrigenda to 1003.1b,
          status: approved 6/95
1003.1j Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for Advanced Real-Time Extensions, 
          status: in ballot
1003.1k Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for Removable Media
          status: project withdrawn
1003.1l (this designation not used)
1003.1m Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for Checkpoint/Restart
          status: under development
1003.1n Corrigenda to 1003.1/1b/1c/1i
          status: under development
1003.1o (this designation not used)
1003.1p Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for Resource Limits
          status: under development
1003.1q Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for Tracing
          status: under development, forming balloting group

Shell and Utilities Group

1003.2  (JTC1 22.21.02.01) - POSIX Shell and Utilities
          status: approved 9/92 [ISO/IEC 9945-21993]
           reaffirmation initiated 9/98 
1003.2a (JTC1 22.21.02.02) - Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.2-1992 for User
	Portability Extensions,
          status: approved 9/92
           reaffirmation initiated 9/98 
1003.2b (JTC1 22.41) - Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.2-1992, 
          status: in ballot
1003.2d Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.2-1992 for Batch Processing, 
          status: approved 12/94
1003.2e Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.2-1993 for Removable Media
          status: project withdrawn

Test Methods Group

1003.3  Test Methods for POSIX, 
          status: approved 3/91
2003    (JTC1 22.37) - Revision of IEEE Std 1003.3-1990, Test Methods for
        POSIX [formerly 1003.3], 
          status: in ballot [ISO/IEC 13210]
2003.1  Test Methods for IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 [formerly 1003.3.1]
          status: approved 12/92
2003.1b Amendment to Test Methods for IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for 1003.1b
          status: in ballot
2003.2  Test Methods for IEEE Std 1003.2-1993 [formerly 1003.3.2]
          status: approved 6/96
2003.5  Test Methods for IEEE Std 1003.5-1992 (Ada)
          status: project withdrawn

Language Bindings Group

1003.5  Ada binding to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990, 
          status: approved 6/92
1003.5a (JTC1 22.21.04.02) - Corrigenda to IEEE Std 1003.5-1992 (Ada
	Binding to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990)
          status: project withdrawn
1003.5b Amendment 1 to IEEE Std 1003.5-1992 (Ada Binding to IEEE Stds 
        1003.1b and 1003.1c) 
          status: approved 6/96
1003.5c Amendment 2 to IEEE Std 1003.5-1992 (Ada Binding to IEEE Std 
        1003.1g) 
          status: in ballot
1003.5d Ada Binding for 1003.1g, 
          status: project withdrawn
1003.5f Ada Binding for 1003.21, 
          status: under development
1003.5g Ada Binding to Realtime Interface 
          status: under development
1003.9  Fortran 77 binding to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990,       
          status: approved    6/92,     reaffirmed 12/97 
1003.24 Ada Binding for X Windows, based on OSF Motif 2.0 and IEEE Std
          1295. status: under development 
1003.26 C-Language Binding to 1003.21 
          status: under development

Security Group

1003.1e (JTC1 22.42) - Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for Security
	[formerly 1003.6.1], 
          status: in ballot project withdrawn 
1003.2c (JTC1 22.43) - Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.2-1993 for Security
	[formerly 1003.6.2], 
          status: in ballot project withdrawn 
1003.22 Guide to Security in Distributed POSIX Environments,
          status: in ballot

System Administration Group

1387.2  (JTC1 22.21.03.04) -Software Administration [formerly 1003.7.2]
          status: approved 6/95 [ISO/IEC 15068-2]
1387.3  (JTC1 22.21.03.05) - User and Group Administration [formerly
          1003.7.3], status: approved 12/96 [ISO/IEC 15068-3]
1387.4  (JTC1 22.21.03.03) - Print Administration [formerly 1003.7.1]
          status: in ballot [ISO/IEC 15068-4] project withdrawn

Distributed Services Group

1003.1g (JTC1 22.21.01.03.03) - Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for
	Protocol-Independent Transport Services [formerly 1003.12],
          status: in ballot
1003.21 Amendment to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 for Real-Time Communications,
          status: in ballot

Profiles Group

1003.0  Guide to POSIX Open Systems Environments, 
          status: approved 5/95 [ISO/IEC 14252 (Technical Report)]
1003.10 Supercomputing Application Environment Profile for POSIX,
          status: approved 6/95
1003.11 Transaction Processing Application Environment Profile for POSIX, 
          status: project withdrawn
1003.13 Real-Time Application Environment Profile standard for POSIX,
          status: approved 3/98 
1003.13a Realtime Application Environment Profile 
          status: under development
1003.14 Multi-Processing Application Environment Profile for POSIX,
          status: project withdrawn
1003.18 POSIX Interactive Systems Application Environment Profile
          status: project withdrawn
1003.23 Guide for Developing User Open System Environment (OSE) Profiles
          status: in ballot
1003.25 Guide to Developing National Locales and Profiles 
          status: under development

Common Lisp [JTC1/SC22/WG16, J13]

Technical committee J13 is responsible for the standardization of the
Common LISP programming language in the USA.  In December 1994, an ANSI
standard for the Common Lisp was formally approved as X3.226-1994.
Common Lisp is the first ANSI standard for an object-oriented programming
language.

J13 began with base document Common Lisp: The Language, by Guy L.  Steele
Jr.  The X3.226-1994 standard places much greater emphasis on portability
and clarifies many aspects of compilation semantics.  The standard also
adds several major pieces of new functionality: an object-oriented
programming system, a condition handling system, an improved iteration
facility, and better support for large character sets.   Presentation of
information in the standard is also substantively different than in the
base document.  Specifically, the standard separates concept information
from dictionary information, separates normative material from examples,
introduces several new notations for more compact and/or precise
presentation of certain kinds of information, and includes an extensive
glossary of terms.

Prolog [JTC1/SC22/WG17, J17]   Updated for 1998

J17 is working with WG17 and focusing on the preparation, publication, 
and balloting of the Final CD for Part 2.  Extra time was been allowed
in the timetable to permit resolution of some remaining issues 
concerning metapredicates. The FCD is currenlty under ballot with a
closing date of 7 December 1998.

Formal Specification Languages [JTC1/SC22/WG19, J21]

J21 has JTC 1 TAG responsibilities for the SC22 projects on Formal
Specification Languages (FSLs). These projects currently are JTC
1.22.29, Vienna Definition Method Specification Language (VDM-SL) and
JTC 1.22.45, Z Specification Language (Z).

J21 interprets the scope of work as being implemented by attention to
(1) VDM-SL standardization, (2) Z standardization, and (3) responding
to requests of other technical committees and other standards
development organizations for technical assistance and collaboration
with regard the use of the assigned FSLs in the development of
standards, such assistance and collaboration being carried out as
liaison activities with the committees involved.

During this reporting period there has been no significant activity on
VDM-SL, however, J21 has maintained a very active involvement in the
work of WG19 (Z Rapporteur Group).  Two members of J2 (D. R. Johnson 
and M. W. Saaltink) are also members of WG19 and have participated by 
providing comments on technical issues being considered by WG19 and by 
reviewing and commenting on committee documents.  In addition, both 
are among the primary writers of the standard, responsible between 
them for revising four chapters of the current CD.

At the request of the US TAG, NCITS T3, members of J21 have provided 
ballot comments on the SC21/WG7 project ISO/IEC 10746-4/pDAM-1 (RM-ODP,
both 4.2 and 4.3), were US delegates to the 1996 Plenary Meeting of 
SC21, and continue to participate in editing meetings for these 
documents.  In liaison with NCITS H7, members of J21 have contributed 
to their work on the RM-ODP Enterprise Viewpoint and have reviewed the 
potential use of deontic logic in addition to model-based FSLs to make 
precise formal statements of obligations, permissions and prohibitions.

PL/I [J1]  Updated for 1998

Technical committee J1 is responsible for maintaining the two
standards for the PL/I programming language. Those standards are
X3.53-1976, PL/I, and X3.74-1987, PL/I General Purpose Subset,
corresponding respectively to IS 6160 and 6522.  J1 also maintains a
technical report (X3/TR-8) on a working definition of the proposed
extensions to PL/I for real time applications.

PL/I standards activity in the USA has been largely dormant since 
the completion of ANSI X3.74-1987 (corresponding to DP 6522) in mid 
1987 and the ISO reaffirmation of ANSI X3.53-1976 (corresponding to 
ISO 6160) in mid-1988.  As a result the technical committee has been 
put into maintenance status.  There have been no requests for 
clarification or other committee responsibilities other than 
reporting and liaison activities.

Within the last few months, J1 has recommended to NCTIS that both
X3.53 and X3.74 be reaffirmed on the ANSI five-year cycle, since the
language is still in use and these documents provide a useful
reference for users.

C++ [JTC1/SC22/WG21, J16]  Updated for 1998

Technical committee J16 is responsible for the US activities concerning
the standardization of the C++ programming language.  Since the last 
JTC1/SC22 plenary, the project for the development of the standard has
proceeded together with JTC1/SC22/WG21.

The technical work is complete.  FDIS 14882 completed JTC1 balloting on
June 23, 1998.  Publication of the International Standard is expected
any day.

The US intends to adopt the international C++ standard as an American 
National Standard.  

Internationalization [JTC1/SC22/WG20, L2]   Updated for 1998

L2's involvement as TAG to WG20 has resulted in more participation of the
US in WG20, and in technical changes in draft standards to make them more
language independent.  Anticipated actions in the near future are the
review of the new FCD 14651 - international string ordering and the draft
for the CD 14652 - specification method for cultural conventions.

Java Study Group [JTC1/SC22/JSG, J22]   Updated for 1998

The US established J22 to serve as the US Tag to SC22's Java Study Group.
J22 has not held a meeting since the last SC22 Plenary, but has been
active through e-mail.
Members of J22 participated actively in the US consideration
of Sun's request for PAS submitter recognition. J22 also had a mail
ballot to determine the US position on the Fast Track submission of
DIS 16262 (ECMA-262 ECMAScript) and sent a delegation to the ballot
resolution meeting.

'NEW' PROJECTS

The US recognizes that several of its national programming language
standards activities do not correspond to projects in JTC1/SC22.  The US
is pleased to offer JTC1/SC22 information to assist its membership in
determining whether to develop worldwide standards for those languages.

The programming language standards development projects listed in this
portion of the report are active within the US but do not have
corresponding JTC1/SC22 activity.

Forth [J14/P1141]

J14 (operating jointly with IEEE P1141) finished developing a standard
for the Forth Programming Language.  It received final approval March 24,
1994, with the designation X3.215: 1994.  The effort has been underway
since August 1987.  This standard was recently approved, via the fast
track process, as an International Standard.

PL/B [J15] (formerly DATABUS)

Technical committee J15, formed in April 1988, is developing a US
national standard for the programming language PL/B.  The draft, X3.238,
has been distributed for public review.  It is anticipated that this
national standards development effort could quickly lead to an
international standard for PL/B that is identical to the US national
standard.

The PL/B programming language, which was originally developed in 1972, is
currently the primary business programming language for over 250,000
workstations in over 40 countries, and is supported by at least nine
independent compiler companies on a broad range of hardware platforms and
operating systems.

PL/B supports highly interactive business application programming in
individual and shared network environments.  PL/B has been developed to
be easily learned in shorter time frames and by less experienced
personnel than a majority of other standard programming languages.  The
PL/B programming language structure lends itself not only to easy code
generation, but also to easily automated code analysis and re engineering
which J15 feels are important considerations for future business
programming environments.

A number of trends have been identified and discussed by J15.  These
trends are expected to affect business software programming languages and
standards development.  Some of these trends have been partially
addressed through enhancements already incorporated into the draft PL/B
standard.  Most of the trends listed here remain to be addressed in the
future, subsequent to the present work of J15--developing the first
standard for PL/B.

a.	Graphic, Context Sensitive Interface:  Business software is
becoming more graphic and bit-map oriented.  Within a few years, most
software users will expect programs to use windowing technology,
graphical icons, pull-down (or pop-up) menus, and pointing devices
(mouse, track ball, touch screen, etc.).

b.	Network of Computers Sharing Common Resources:  The age of local
area networks is here.  Programming languages will need to provide better
facilities to support common data access among disparate users attempting
simultaneous access.  The abilities to access and update data and perform
coordinated transactions should be supported by all future business
programming languages.

c.	Utilization of SQL:  Business oriented programming languages and
application software will be required to interface to various databases
through SQL.  Without SQL, although programs may be portable between
hardware environments, it is doubtful that they will be compatible with
other programs written in different languages, or accessing other
databases.  In the business world, compatibilit is far more important for
a single data processing installation and user of business software than
is portability (which tends to be more important for software providers).
SQL is rapidly  gaining popularity as a vehicle for providing both
desired features.

d.	Parallel Processing:  Tremendous opportunity exists within the
near future to harness the power of multiple processor computers.
Currently no standardized computer programming language provides
substantial means to make use of parallel processing power within a
single program.  Programming techniques, and programming language
constructs to support those techniques, need to be developed to address
this issue.

e.	International Market:  Business oriented programming languages
need to support greatly expanded character sets, expanded keyboard
interactivity, and greater control over key-in and echo-back of
characters.  Seven and eight bit coded character sets are inadequate for
international markets.

REXX [J18]

The first standard for the Rexx programming language is published as
X3.274-1996

The project for an Extended Rexx version is approved and under way.

MUMPS [MDC]  Updated for 1998

Fask-track ISO balloting has been completed for three M[UMPS} Development
Committee (MDC) standards, the first two on 17 March 1998 and the third
on 2 April 1998
* X11.1, M[UMPS] language specification (revision of ISO 11756-1992)
* X11.6, M[UMPS] Windowing Application Programmers' Interface (new
standard - ISO 15852)
* X11.2, Open M[UMPS] Interconnect (new standard - ISO 15851)

The MDC is in the process of making the required edits to all three
documents to conform to ISO formatting requirements and expects to have
this completed by the 17 August 1998 deadline.

After a recent consolidation in the vendor community, the MDC is
conducting a review of the business case for continued development of
ANSI and ISO standards.  We are contacting vendors and users around the
world for information on their interest in additional standards work.

In the meanwhile, the MDC is preparing draft texts for new versions of
the M Language, MWAPI, and OMI standards.  Plans for circulation and
balloting of these documents will depend on responses from implementors
and users.

Smalltalk (J20)

The US is continuing a project to develop a standard for the Smalltalk
programming language.  Current project plans call for producing a US
standard.

APL [JTC1/SC22/WG3]

The US is no longer actively participating in the development of the 
APL standards.  

BASIC

The US is no longer actively participating in the development of the 
BASIC standards. 

PCTE [JTC1/SC22/WG22]

The US terminated its activities in the development of the PCTE standards.

_____________________ end of SC22 N2804 _____________________________