From martin@ocfmail.ocf.llnl.gov Fri Jul 17 02:20:33 1992 Received: from [134.9.48.4] by dkuug.dk via EUnet with SMTP (5.64+/8+bit/IDA-1.2.8) id AA11283; Fri, 17 Jul 92 02:20:33 +0200 Received: by ocfmail.ocf.llnl.gov (4.1/SMI-4.0) id AA28336; Thu, 16 Jul 92 17:19:50 PDT Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 17:19:50 PDT From: martin@ocfmail.ocf.llnl.gov (Jeanne Martin) Message-Id: <9207170019.AA28336@ocfmail.ocf.llnl.gov> To: SC22WG5@dkuug.dk Subject: N760 Replacement [proposed] (N794) X-Charset: ASCII X-Char-Esc: 29 ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5 - N794 A Strategic Plan for the Next Fortran Standard (N760 modified by J. T. Martin) June 9, 1992 1. Mission (the goal to achieve) To establish procedures whereby a revision of the international Fortran standard is produced every five years beginning in 1995. Each of these revisions, during its lifetime, will be recognized and accepted worldwide as the single international Fortran standard. Between revisions, if needed, corrections and clarifications may be published as corrigenda. Each revision will incorporate any such items determined during the maintenance of the previous revision and will, as much as possible, not invalidate any authorized collateral standards produced prior to the adoption of the revision. 2. Vision (the desired effect of achieving the goal) That the community of nations will constructively collaborate on the production of these standards, that the resulting products will serve the worldwide Fortran community effectively, and that consequently no nation or other organizational unit will feel the need for other alternatives. 3. Values (fundamental principles associated with achieving the goal) 3.1. Service. Fortran serves primarily the global scientific and engineering community. The purpose of the proposed revisions is to serve the diverse needs of this community as effectively as possible. 3.2. Unity. Mirroring the workings of society in general, the Fortran community is increasingly diverse and its constituent parts increasingly interdependent. These revisions should provide the "glue" that holds this community together for maximum effectiveness and productivity. 3.3. Teamwork. These revisions should be the result of the cooperative efforts of the worldwide Fortran community. There should be a broad and balanced representation of users, vendors, and academics, collectively providing appropriate scientific expertise. These efforts should be characterized by true teamwork among the participants. 3.4. Progress. These revisions should contribute positively to the cause of and improve the lot of science and society and should optimally benefit those affected by them. That is, the world as a whole should be better off with these periodic revisions of the international Fortran standard. 4. Strategies (what specific functions will achieve the goal) 4.1. Two major functions. There are two major functions: requirements specification and development. Other activities include scheduling, maintaining previous standards, performing liaison and review activities, and conducting ad hoc studies. The requirements specification and development functions should be separate but highly coordinated. 4.2. Requirements specification as the "what" function. The requirements specification function is to determine and specify the functional requirements for standard revisions and any collateral standards. This function should be preformed by an ISO body that has broad international representation. Requirements will be reviewed by national bodies, and once they have been accepted internationally, changes will be permitted only in exceptional circumstances. It is the responsibility of the requirements specification body to recommend whether a requirement will be met by revision or by a collateral standard. [ The final decision will be based on advice from member bodies and from the revision development body.] Further responsibilities are to choose the development bodies, monitor development, and determine whether the implementations of the requirements are adequate and consistent with the specifications. The requirements specification body also has oversight responsibility for the maintenance of the current standard and for any corrigenda. Ultimately, draft documents will be submitted to ISO for adoption as international standards. 4.3. Development as the "how" function. The development function is to develop the international standard revisions and any collateral standards. A primary development body will be chosen to produce each revision. It is the responsibility of the revision development body to determine the content of a particular revision and to prepare the draft document, incorporating approved corrections and clarifications and fully implemented requirements. The same or other bodies may be chosen to develop any collateral standards. A collateral standard is one that extends the functionality of Fortran via the established interfacing mechanisms provided by the language; that is, the interface of a collateral standard is definable within the module/use and procedure interface structure. This ensures that different collateral standards do not conflict with each other or the language. A collateral standard must not use any obsolescent features. This ensures that the collateral standard will be compatible with the next revision as well. Collateral standards also may be developed by other standards organizations to bind functionalities (such as graphics, data base management, or operating system facilities) to Fortran. This is the mechanism for all bodies developing Fortran-related standards other than the revision development body [US: and those bodies coordinating their work closely with the revision development body]. 4.4. Scheduling as the "when" function. The schedule for revisions is predetermined. Requirements that have been completely developed and corrections and clarifications that have been agreed upon at the time the draft is to be finalized will be incorporated in the current revision. Any requirements that are not completely developed at that time will be postponed to the next revision. Activities involving maintenance of the current standard will take place concurrently with the development activities. Development of collateral standards can occur at any time. Since the schedule must be reported to JTC1, the schedule will be phrased in ISO terms. The relevant ISO stages for ongoing projects are: 2 preparatory 3 committee CD ballot (SC22) 4 approval DIS ballot (JTC1) 5 publication [See, for example, WG5 Standing Document 3 (WG5-N643)] 4.5. Maintaining Fortran standards. Maintenance of a standard involves making corrections to errors that are discovered in the standard and providing official interpretations for those parts of the standard that are found to be unclear or incompletely specified. A corrigendum that incorporates corrections, clarifications, and interpretations resulting from this maintenance activity may be produced at any time. 4.6. Performing liaison and review activities. It is the responsibility of the requirements specification and development bodies to establish liaison with and review the work of other standards organizations whose work items relate to the Fortran standards effort. Such organizations include: SC22/WG11 and X3T2 (CLIA, CLID, CLIP) SC22/WG15 and IEEE P1003.9 (POSIX Fortran Bindings) SC22/WG20 (Internationalization) X3H5 and HPFF (Parallel Processing) 4.7. Conducting ad hoc studies. It is the responsibility of the requirements specification body to determine whether studies are needed to aid the requirements specification process. It is then the responsibility of each participating member body to conduct such a study internally. Once preliminary requirements have been established, it is the responsibility of each participating member body to submit them to a widespread review prior to their finalization and development. It is the responsibility of the development bodies to determine whether studies are needed to aid the development process. These bodies may conduct their own study or request the requirements specification body to conduct an international study. 5. Tactics (how to achieve the strategic objectives) 5.1. The requirements specification body. ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5 should be the body responsible for specifying the requirements. It has the necessary relationship with ISO and the appropriate membership. WG5 will establish an effective management committee to make recommendations and interim decisions when it is inconvenient to involve the entire membership. The membership of the management committee will be reestablished at each meeting and be in effect until the following meeting. In general, once every five years, WG5 will issue a call to national member bodies amd individuals to provide requirements together with a rationale for each requirement. These requirements will be assembled from comprehensive input systematically gathered. The list must reach the Convenor six weeks prior to that year's WG5 meeting in order to be distributed for initial review. At the meeting WG5 will determine items that it selects as requirements and some that it rejects. Thus a preliminary requirements list will be determined at the meeting, reviewed internationally during the following year, and finalized at the following meeting. The final list may consist of two parts: requirements to be satisfied by revision and requirements to be satisfied by collateral standards. Since the principle content of the 1995 revision will be corrections and clarifications of Fortran 90, there will be no international call for requirements for this revision nor will there be a review of the requirements. WG5 members will be invited to present initial requirements for discussion at the 1992 and 1993 WG5 meetings to obtain a preliminary overview. It is possible that some of these requirements, if accepted, may be developed for the 1995 revision. Others may need further investigation; if so, these may be assigned to subgroups to establish a recommendation before the fall 1994 meeting. In 1994, there will a systematic attempt to gather requirements since, by this time, there will be experience with Fortran 90. Thus, following the 1993 meeting, WG5 will issue the first call for requirements. Lists of requirements must reach the Convenor by July 1, 1994 in order to be distributed prior to the fall 1994 WG5 meeting. These requirements will be targeted for development in the revision following the 1995 revision. 5.2. The development bodies. WG5 recommends to SC22 that X3J3 be invited to fulfill the role of the primary development body responsible for drafting the next two revisions. X3J3 has already accepted responsibility for maintenance of Fortran 90. The primary development body is responsible for appointing a project editor and producing a draft document to meet the agreed schedule. A document production system is required that will allow the most recent electronic version of any proposed standard to be available to all members of WG5 and the development body. Development of requirements may begin as soon as the requirements have been specified and accepted internationally. If a requirement is to be developed as a collateral standard, it is the responsibilitiy of the requirements specification body to determine the development body. It is the responsibility of the collateral standard development body to appoint a project editor and to produce a draft within a schedule agreed upon with the requirements specification body. The collateral standard development body must maintainclose liaison with the primary development body. 5.3. The schedule. It is the responsibility of the requirements specification body to provide a schedule for the revision process. Following is a proposed schedule for the next two revisions: phase first revision second revision preparatory 2.1 11-91 7-92 initial call for requirements 3-92 7-93 deadline for list 5-93 5-94 initial requirements complete ---- 7-94 requirements review complete ---- 5-95 requirements complete 7-93 9-95 working draft 2.8 4-94 12-98 CD ballot 3.0 6-94 1-99 3.1 6-94 1-99 3.2 9-94 4-99 3.8 11-94 9-99 DIS ballot 4.0 12-94 10-99 4.1 12-94 10-99 4.2 7-95 5-00 4.4 9-95 7-00 4.8 9-95 7-00 publication 5.0 11-95 8-00 5.3 12-95 10-00 5.4. Fortran maintenance bodies. The requirements specification body will determine maintenance bodies for Fortran standards. In general, the body that developed a standard will be responsible for its maintenance. X3J3 has responsibility for maintaining Fortran 90 and for drafting corrigenda for the standards it develops. 5.5. Coordination between the requirements specification and development bodies. Meeting schedules will be coordinated to make the best advantage of members' resources as far as time and travel expenses are concerned and to accomplish the goals established by the schedule. There should be as much overlap as possible in the membership of the requirements specification and revision development bodies. This provides informal communication and continuity. In addition, each body will have as a member an official representative of the other. Formal written reports and resolutions will be used to clarify communications and maintain a record of communications. At each meeting a Responses and Resolutions (R&R) report will be produced that is intended to be the official communication and coordination vehicle between the requirements specification body and the primary development body or other development body, as appropriate. The R&R reports produced by WG5 will be sent to the appropriate development body; the R&R reports produced by the development body will be sent to WG5. The responses portion of each R&R report will contain responses to resolutions received from the other bodies. The resolutions part may contain any information for or requests of the other bodies. Annex A. Schedule Implications For the next three years, the proposed schedule has the following implications for each participating WG5 member body: before - review the strategic plan 1992 - review the maintenance activities of X3J3 meeting - prepare informal requirements accompanied by rationale and send to Convenor 6 weeks before the meeting at - approve a strategic plan 1992 - accept or reject F90 maintenance proposals meeting - review preliminary requirements - initiate requirements studies, if needed before - prepare informal list of requirements accom- 1993 panied by rationale and send to Convenor 6 meeting weeks before the meeting - review ongoing maintenance activities at - finalize requirements for 1995 revision 1993 - accept or reject F90 maintenance proposals meeting - determine if corrigenda needed and if so, specify content - initiate more requirements studies, if needed before - begin widespread national study to gather 1994 requirements for 2000 revision meeting - review WD for 1995 revision (spring) at - approve WD of 1995 revision for CD 1994 registration meeting - initiate list of requirements for 2000 revision (spring) before - prepare national responses to CD ballot 1994 - prepare results of requirements study and meeting send to Convenor 6 weeks before meeting (fall) at - process results of CD ballot on 1995 revision 1994 and approve edits to draft for DIS registration meeting - finalize requirements for 2000 revision (fall) before - prepare national responses to DIS ballot 1995 - review development activities meeting at - process results of DIS ballot and approve edits 1995 to draft for publication meeting - monitor development of requirements