From rinehuls@Radix.Net Fri Sep 3 00:28:03 1999 Received: from mail1.radix.net (mail1.radix.net [207.192.128.31]) by dkuug.dk (8.9.2/8.9.2) with ESMTP id AAA85730; Fri, 3 Sep 1999 00:28:02 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from rinehuls@Radix.Net) Received: from saltmine.radix.net (saltmine.radix.net [207.192.128.40]) by mail1.radix.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id SAA24361; Thu, 2 Sep 1999 18:28:42 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1999 18:28:40 -0400 (EDT) From: William Rinehuls To: sc22info@dkuug.dk cc: keld simonsen Subject: SC22 N2986 - Ireland National Body Activity Report for SC22 Plenary - PLENARY AGENDA ITEM 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 N2986 TITLE: Ireland National Body Activity Report for the September 1999 JTC 1/SC22 Plenary - PLENARY AGENDA ITEM DATE ASSIGNED: 1999-09-02 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 September 1999 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@radix.net ___________ end of title page; beginning of report _________________ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Irish National Report to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 As reported last year, the Irish Member Body really has as its particular interest only one project of one WG of SC22, namely ISO/IEC 14651 of SC22/WG20, which is concerned with sorting the UCS. One member of the NSAI/AGITS/WG6 has an interest in C++, but apparently he works directly with the relevant SC22/WG and has not reported to WG6 about it. As convener of WG6 I continue to find it rather burdensome to have to deal with all the SC22 correspondence and make sure Ireland votes on time and so forth when our chief interest is in one standard made by one SC22/WG. The relation between ISO/IEC 10646 and ISO/IEC 14651 is of extreme importance. The fact that ISO/IEC 10646 and the Unicode Standard are technically identical is highly relevant here. The Unicode Technical Committee handles _both_ encoding and ordering, in the Unicode Standard and the Unicode Collation Algorithm. US and Canadian members of SC22/WG20 are also members of the UTC and JTC1/SC2. Administering ISO/IEC 10646 and ISO/IEC 14651 in two different SCs is impractical and needlessly expensive. Ireland urges SC22 in the strongest possible terms to recommend and initiate immediate transfer of responsibility for ISO/IEC 14651 to JTC1/SC2. There is nothing so overwhelmingly relevant to "programming languages" or "internationalization" with regard to ISO/IEC 14651 that it must remain administered by SC22. It is an algorithm for ordering characters, but the algorithm has been developed, and maintenance of the Common Template as ISO/IEC 10646 grows can only be done by an SC that understands the characters. Ireland is considering withdrawing from P-membership in SC22 because of the issues raised above. The only reason we have not done so is our sense of duty to ISO/IEC 14651. SC22 should consider in plenary the implications of the contemplated Irish withdrawal from SC22 with regard to ISO/IEC 14651, especially in consideration of the minimum number of participating countries for any project or WG. Michael Everson Convener, NSAI/AGITS/WG6 _______________________ end of SC22 N2986 ______________________________