The calling notice and agenda for this meeting were originally circulated as N334.
The 33rd meeting of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG9 (Ada) was hosted by ACM SIGAda in conjunction with the Tri-Ada'97 conference. It was held in Room 312 of the Holiday Inn Riverfront hotel in conjunction with the Tri-Ada'97 conference, http://www.acm.org/sigada/tri-ada/.
Appointment of Meeting Secretary
Clyde Roby agreed to serve as Secretary for the meeting, in addition to his continuing duties as the WG9 Webmaster.
The agenda was distributed; no changes were made to it.
The minutes of the London meeting, available as document N333, were unanimously approved by resolution. The resolutions approved at the London meeting are available as document N331. No corrections to these documents were proposed.
[See Resolution 33-5.]
The following delegations and individuals attended this meeting; reports given are also included.
Written reports were received from the following delegations:
AFNOR met on October 27th in preparation of the WG9 meeting. We voted Yes on the ASIS proposal, Yes to the proposed response to defects report in the Posix/Ada binding, and Yes with participation (G. Motet) to the HRG proposal.
Some members expressed concerns because the summary of voting on the numerics proposal did not include a mention that our proposed revised (French) title had been accepted. I think it is normal for this document, but please make sure that we get a notice of it being formally accepted (maybe a motion at the meeting).
We approved all proposed AIs, with a comment on AI182. It says (2nd paragraph of summary):
"7.6.1(13) is modified so that an anonymous object is not finalized until after it is no longer accessible via any name".
Although we agree with the intent, all other AIs state the precise new wording, and we think the same should be done for this one.
Germany has a need for Ada programmers. Germany now has a DIN counterpart to WG9.
The official activities to make a JIS Standard of Ada 95 have not yet begun. At this time we cannot show the schedule of the standardization work. In fact, there exists an informal translation of Ada 95 (ISO/IEC 8652:1995) into Japanese. It was prepared by a private group formed as an activity of the Japanese chapter of ACM SIGAda. This translation can be used as a base document of the JIS Standard, but it is not an easy task to make it conform to JIS rules (especially in style issues).
Netherlands continues to support the work of the Annex H RG.
Sweden will participate in the HRG.
The UK continues to support the work of the HRG.
The US would like a discussion of Ada interfaces to Java, C++, and possibly ODBC; we think that there is a possible need to begin a working group.
Representing WG9, convener attended the SC22 plenary meeting in Ottawa, Canada. [This report is available as N335.] Results of the meeting are noted at the appropriate points in the agenda.
Thanks were extended to Steve Michell of Canada for the productive time in Ottawa at SC22.
From convener: Clyde Roby continues his fine work in maintaining WG9's web page at http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg9/
When asked if the WG9 web site was being used productively, members from all national bodies responded in the affirmative.
From N328 and N329, Convener's 1997 Report: [One of] the most important task[s] of WG9 is to set up a defect resolution and clarification process for IS 8652; this work would eventually lead to formal COR or AMD documents or to a revision of the base standard. So that preliminary defect reports and clarifications may be properly circulated among the entire community of concern, it is necessary that they be openly available without copyright restrictions. The current uncertainty regarding the copyright issue endangers satisfactory performance of this task. Even the one-year trial relaxation of the policy is inadequate because the threat remains that once such material is introduced into the JTC1 process, it is subject to imposition of copyright in the future.
From N335, WG9 Convener's Report of SC22 Plenary Meeting: In behalf of WG9, I requested that SC22 make a request to JTC1 to allow WG9 to provide public access to any Technical Corrigenda document prepared for the Ada standard. (Public access is already permitted for Defect Reports and Working Group Responses.) This request was approved; it is anticipated that JTC1 will approve the request because there is precedent.
From SC22 Secretariat's note to JTC1 Secretariat: At the August 18-21, 1997 meeting of JTC 1/SC22, SC22 passed a resolution requesting ISO/IEC JTC 1 to request ITTF to permit SC22/WG9 (Ada) to make publicly available the Technical Corrigenda and Record of Responses for ISO/IEC 8652:1995 - Programming Language Ada.
From SC22 Chairman's report from JTC1 Plenary: JTC1 instructed the JTC1 Secretariat to request approval from the ISO and IEC Councils to place on the World Wide Web the Technical Corrigenda and Records of Responses to ISO/IEC 8652, Programming Language Ada.
This has been endorsed by SC22, by JTC1, and it is expected to be endorsed soon by the central secretariat.
Convener's summary of status from meeting #32: There was general support for ISO's intention to perform more work via electronic correspondence. For our own correspondence, it was generally agreed that:
From N335, WG9 Convener's Report of SC22 Plenary Meeting: In behalf of WG9, I requested that SC22 support a request to JTC1 to add PostScript to the list of acceptable formats for the electronic distribution of documents. This request was NOT approved. Apparently, this issue is old and contentious and few people want to reconsider it. In a straw vote within SC22, a slight majority of delegations supported the request but the margin was considered too narrow to constitute grounds for a strong request to JTC1 to change the existing plan of action. One of the other Working Group conveners has agreed to provide an FTP mechanism which we may use to produce PDF from PostScript documents.
From Convener: As you know, SC22 has rejected our request for their support in adding PostScript to the list of acceptable formats for distributing documents. Their action effectively kills the issue. Therefore, to circulate any document at the level of SC22 or above, we must be able to place it in one of the acceptable formats. Those formats include:
(More information is available at: http://www.open-std.org/JTC1/IMPIT/open/j14769.doc.)
The difficulties in using Word, WordPerfect or RTF for drafts of complex documents have been extensively discussed in WG9. This suggests that, in the future, we might want to distribute documents in the form of PDF.
The note at http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg9/PS-to-PDF.txt describes an experimental service being provided by another WG convener in SC22. This service will convert PostScript documents to PDF. You might want to try it out.
Documents circulated only within WG9 can be in any form that we find acceptable, including PostScript.
Currently, documents submitted to ISO Central Secretariat for publication may be in a wide variety of formats, but this may change. When we decide to submit a Technical Corrigenda, we will have to submit it in PDF or one of the other formats.
Clyde Roby volunteered to provide a facility to convert PostScript files to PDF.
It was noted that the converter provided by another WG did not work for Ted Baker when he ran a POSIX document through it.
From SC22 Chairman's report from JTC1 Plenary: JTC1 approved a requirement that its standards development groups develop an "Executive Summary" to accompany standards. This will be a separate document for information and distribution purposes, although it could also be used in the standard itself as an introduction. The intent is to use the executive summary in external communication and information efforts. Although it will be required during the review period and may be subject to comment, its content will not be part of the ballot on the standard.
From SC22 Chairman's report from JTC1 Plenary: JTC1 decided that Technical Corrigenda under ballot in an SC will no longer be distributed at the JTC1 level, with the proviso that JTC1 must be kept informed of any Technical Corrigenda under development and/or submitted to ITTF for publication.
Jim Moore noted that the reorganization has occurred in order to focus on those standards of more importance (to the commercial community).
From SC22 Chairman's report from JTC1 Plenary: SCs 14, 18, 21, and 30 are disbanded (either immediately or following one additional plenary) and two new SCs are created: SC32 on Data Management Services and SC33 on Distributed Application Services. Other ad hoc and special working groups were disbanded.
From Convener: SC21 had been responsible for the Ada binding to IRDS.
It was noted during the WG9 meeting that the standardization activities for IRDS will probably end up in SC32.
From Convener: DIS 13813 and DIS 13814 were overwhelmingly approved in balloting. Both ballots were approved by 20 votes in favor and 1 vote against. The national body voting against the two documents will reverse its vote when a straightforward change is made to them. The next step is for the Project Editors, Don Sando and Jon Squire, to prepare Disposition of Comments reports and revise the text for publication as an IS.
From Convener: SC22 approved our request for concurrent CD registration and Final CD balloting of WD 15291. That ballot is currently underway and will conclude on March 9, 1998.
From convener: The schedule for meeting #34 was already adopted during the London meeting of WG9. The schedule for meeting #35 is proposed for the first time:
[See Resolution 33-4.]
JTC1 requires each working group to maintain a standing list of documents. Jim Moore is planning to keep as few as possible; he will roll over unfinished resolutions and action items from meeting to meeting. These will always be included in the minutes of each meeting as well as the draft agenda for the following meeting.
From convener: This is the "To Do" list for WG9. Some are informal action items assigned to various participants. Some are formal resolutions which are not yet implemented. Some are suspense items awaiting action by other groups.
After resolution of the ISO copyright issue, determine a schedule for preparation of a technical corrigenda to the Ada standard, ISO/IEC 8652.
Status: A request for relief from ISO copyright policy has been made, endorsed by SC22, endorsed by JTC1, and forwarded to ISO Central Secretariat for disposition. This remains open; Jim Moore is working with Erhard Ploedereder to resolve this item.
The following guidance is provided to the Ada Rapporteur Group in dealing with Ada Issues: it should be possible to write portable bindings to C programs. The Ada Rapporteur Group is requested to propose an appropriate mechanism.
Status: ARG will consider this at its meeting beginning on 14 November.
WG9 forwards a proposed New Work Item, "Guidance for the Use of Ada in High Integrity Systems," to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 and recommends that SC22 propose its approval by JTC1. WG9 is prepared to accept the responsibility for the performance of this project.
Status: The New Work Item is currently being balloted. Approval is anticipated at JTC1; it has already been attained at SC22.
WG9 provides the following direction to the Annex H Rapporteur Group (HRG) for the performance of any project resulting from approval of the proposed New Work Item on "Guidance for the Use of Ada in High Integrity Systems":
WG9 directs the HRG to present the resolution of this Work Item in a positive fashion which includes some abstraction of the regulatory rules; the resolution shall demonstrate:
- how Ada supports these abstractions
- how other languages support these abstractions
- usage paradigms for resolutions of these abstractions with a subset of Ada
Status: This issue will be considered at the next meeting of the HRG. It was noted that a formal response to this item would be a document.
WG9 authorizes the Convener, in his judgment, to request simultaneous processing of any or all of the following steps in the progress of project 15291: CD registration, CD ballot, final CD ballot.
Status: CLOSED. Convener requested, and SC22 approved, concurrent balloting for CD registration and Final CD ballot. That balloting is now underway.
From N328 and N329, 1997 Convener's Report:
Project 22.15291-- WD 15291 Ada Semantic Interface Specification (ASIS), Clyde Roby and Steve Blake, editors.
Currie distributed two documents:
At this meeting of WG9, Currie gave a brief overview of the ASIS related activites that occurred at Tri-Ada'97.
Resolution from Meeting #32: The disposition of comments on the ASIS Working Draft ballot is approved by WG9 and the Project Editor of project 15291 is authorized to forward Version 2.0.N of the draft to the SC22 secretariat for CD registration.
Currie noted that Version 2.0.P of ASIS was actually forwarded.Resolution from Meeting #32: WG9 authorizes the Convener, in his judgment, to request simultaneous processing of any or all of the following steps in the progress of project 15291: CD registration, CD ballot, final CD ballot.
From convener: In preparation for the expedited balloting process used for ASIS, ISO Central Secretariat performed an editorial review of the working draft.
From N328 and N329, 1997 Convener's Report: WG9 requests approval for simultaneous CD registration and FCD balloting of the Working Draft 15291.
From N335, WG9 Convener's Report of SC22 Plenary Meeting: In behalf of WG9, I requested that the CD registration ballot and the Final CD Balloting for project JTC1.22.15291 (ASIS) be conducted concurrently. This request was approved. We can anticipate that this ballot will commence in September if we promptly provide the draft for balloting.
From the Resolutions of the SC22 Plenary Meeting:
Resolution 97-21: Concurrent Letter Ballots for Ada ASIS:
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 authorizes the Secretariat to conduct concurrent CD registration and Final CD letter ballots for project JTC 1.22.15291 - Ada Semantic Interface Specification (ASIS).
SC22 ballot on combined CD Registration and Final CD is underway: Due March 9, 1998. SC22 Letter Ballot N2588 - Concurrent CD Registration and FCD Approval for Ada Semantic Interface Specification (ASIS).
From Currie Colket, Chair of ASIS RG: Preliminary Report (See Attachments)
The ASIS RG has discovered four additional issues. They would like to arrange for national bodies to include these issues in their FCD ballot.
From N328 and N329, 1997 Convener's Report:
Project 22.10.01 -- IS 8652:1995 Programming Languages: Ada, Erhard Ploedereder and Bob Duff, editors.
Planning for the revision of 8652 is commencing.
From N335, WG9 Convener's Report of SC22 Plenary Meeting: In behalf of WG9, I requested that Erhard Ploedereder and Bob Duff be named as the Project Editors of project JTC1.22.10.01 (the Ada standard). This request was approved.
ACTION 31-8 [Moore]: After resolution of the ISO copyright issue, determine a schedule for preparation of a technical corrigenda to the Ada standard, ISO/IEC 8652.
Status: A request for relief from ISO copyright policy has been made, endorsed by SC22, endorsed by JTC1, and forwarded to ISO Central Secretariat for disposition.
Convener's summary of status from meeting #32: The ARG reported that most of its remaining backlog of Ada Issues will be resolved before the next meeting. Their plan is to produce an initial working draft of a Technical Corrigendum by July 1998 and to complete its approval and publication by the year 2000. The document would be a collection of issues and responses like the Corrigendum to the C language prepared in another working group of SC22.
Resolution passed at meeting #32: The following guidance is provided to the Ada Rapporteur Group in dealing with Ada Issues: it should be possible to write portable bindings to C programs. The Ada Rapporteur Group is requested to propose an appropriate mechanism.
Status: ARG will consider this at its meeting beginning on 14 November.
Report of ARG Chair: The ARG has not met since the June WG9 meeting. Its next meeting is scheduled to begin right after the WG9 meeting in St. Louis. The ARG is still plagued by diminishing funding for its members.
Mainly out of the Henley meeting in April, the ARG submits the following AIs for approval by WG9.
[See Resolution 33-3.]
All these AIs can be found on: http://sw-eng.falls-church.va.us/AdaIC/standards/95com/ada-issues/arg-approved/
Erhard distributed "The ARG Work Sheet", a description of the status of AI processing:
Status as of 97/4/11
Deleted AIs: 3
subsumed editorial AIs: 5
ARG-approved AARM AIs: 16
WG9-approved editorial AIs: 9
WG9-approved AIs: 85
ARG-approved AIs: 13
Work Item AIs: 35 (9 "high", 12 "medium", 14 "low" priority)
Unprocessed AIs: 28 (4 "high", 14 "medium", 10 "low" priority)
Presentation AI: 1
---
195
Comparisons:
97/10: 64 open AIs (of 195)
96/12: 65 open AIs (of 175)
95/12: 103 open AIs (of 103)
Erhard also noted that funding is a problem, particularly for Bob Duff.
Erhard noted the French comment and stated that the premise of the comment is false. Precise new wording is not generally placed in AIs. The wording if provided is only viewed as a suggestion (to avoid spending a lot of time on wordsmithing). But it is funny that the wording section in this AI is left empty. It will be changed to: "(See summary)".
With this change, the resolution is approved.
Resolution from meeting #32: WG9 forwards a proposed New Work Item, "Guidance for the Use of Ada in High Integrity Systems," to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 and recommends that SC22 propose its approval by JTC1. WG9 is prepared to accept the responsibility for the performance of this project. (The submitted NWI is N332.)
Resolution from meeting #32: WG9 provides the following direction to the Annex H Rapporteur Group (HRG) for the performance of any project resulting from approval of the proposed New Work Item on "Guidance for the Use of Ada in High Integrity Systems":
WG9 directs the HRG to present the resolution of this Work Item in a positive fashion which includes some abstraction of the regulatory rules; the resolution shall demonstrate:
- how Ada supports these abstractions
- how other languages support these abstractions
- usage paradigms for resolutions of these abstractions with a subset of Ada
From N328 and N329, 1997 Convener's Report: WG9 recommends approval of the New Work Item proposal for "Guidance for the use of Ada in High Integrity Systems" and is prepared to accept responsibility for a project resulting from the proposed NWI.
From Convener: JTC1 has asked that the NWI and the justification (N332) be resubmitted in the form of HTML. The Chair of the HRG has complied. The resulting document is N337.
SC22 ballot on the New Work Item: Due October 28, SC22 Letter Ballot N2494 - Approval of a Proposal for a NWI on "Guidance for the use of Ada in High Integrity Systems" - Type 3 Technical Report.
SC22 support of the NWI: SC22 Document N2605, "Summary of Voting" shows that seven member bodies agree to participate, that the UK has offered a Project Editor, Gareth Rowlands, and that Canada has offered to contribute a document. Accordingly, the SC22 Secretariat has forwarded the NWI to JTC1 for their approval.
Steve Michell noted that US did not vote on the NWI. HRG would very much like participation from the US.
The following schedule was put forward:
Steve Michell and Jim Moore will communicate via email to develop an overall schedule. Perhaps the HRG document will be complete by the end of 1999.
The Canadian contribution is at www.ora.on.ca.
From N328 and N329, 1997 Convener's Report:
Project 22.10.02 -- IS 11430:1994 Generic Package of Elementary Functions for Ada, Ken Dritz, editor.
Project 22.10.03 -- IS 11729:1994 Generic Package of Primitive Functions for Ada, Ken Dritz, editor.
The contents of 11430 and 11729 are substantively subsumed by the subsequent approval of the 1995 revision of 8652. These standards will probably be withdrawn circa 1999.
From N328 and N329, 1997 Convener's Report:
Project 22.10.04 -- DIS 13813 Generic packages of real and complex type declarations and basic operations for Ada (including vector and matrix types), Don Sando and Ken Dritz, editors.
Completion in 1998 is planned.
From Convener: DIS 13813 and DIS 13814 were overwhelmingly approved in balloting. Both ballots were approved by 20 votes in favor and 1 vote against. The national body voting against the two documents will reverse its vote when a straightforward change is made to them. The next step is for the Project Editors, Don Sando and Jon Squire, to prepare Disposition of Comments reports and revise the text for publication as an IS.
The following from the French delegation:
Some members expressed concerns because the summary of voting on the numerics proposal did not include a mention that our proposed revised (French) title had been accepted. I think it is normal for this document, but please make sure that we get a notice of it being formally accepted (maybe a motion at the meeting).
The Project Editors can probably deal with this issue in their Disposition of Comments reports, which are not yet prepared.
[See Resolution 33-1.]
From N328 and N329, 1997 Convener's Report:
Project 22.10.05 -- DIS 13814 Generic package of complex elementary functions for Ada, Jon Squire and Ken Dritz, editors.
Completion in 1998 is planned.
From Convener: DIS 13813 and DIS 13814 were overwhelmingly approved in balloting. Both ballots were approved by 20 votes in favor and 1 vote against. The national body voting against the two documents will reverse its vote when a straightforward change is made to them. The next step is for the Project Editors, Don Sando and Jon Squire, to prepare Disposition of Comments reports and revise the text for publication as an IS.
From Jon Squire: I have read and understand all the requested changes. I just need a day to make them very carefully, so I do not introduce and new problems. Should be finished by the end of October, so you can report that changes have been made.
The following from the French delegation:
Some members expressed concerns because the summary of voting on the numerics proposal did not include a mention that our proposed revised (French) title had been accepted. I think it is normal for this document, but please make sure that we get a notice of it being formally accepted (maybe a motion at the meeting).
The Project Editors can probably deal with this issue in their Disposition of Comments reports, which are not yet prepared.
[See Resolution 33-2.]
From N328 and N329, 1997 Convener's Report:
Project 22.35 -- (Type 2) TR 11735:1996 EXTensions for real-time Ada, Nasser Kettani, editor.
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.
From Project Editor: No activity to report.
From N328 and N329, 1997 Convener's Report:
Project 22.31 -- IS 12227:1995 SQL/Ada Module Description Language (SAMeDL), Andreas Koeller, editor.
WG9 has determined that the revision of 12227 is currently unnecessary; this decision will be reconsidered periodically.
From N335, WG9 Convener's Report of SC22 Plenary Meeting: In behalf of WG9, I requested that Andreas Koeller be named as the Project Editor of project JTC1.22.31 (SAMeDL). This request was approved.
Convener's summary of status from meeting #32: None of the national bodies is interested in further work on SQL/Ada bindings beyond the current IS 12227 (SAMeDL) standard and the bindings included in the IS 9075 (SQL) standard.
Jim Moore noted that when this comes up for renewal, we will either vote to withdraw it or to reaffirm it.
No known activity.
From Ted Baker: The POSIX standards continue to be primarily oriented to the C language, though work on Ada bindings continues alongside.
The IEEE is conducting reaffirmation ballots for IEEE STD 1003.9 (Fortran binding to 1003.1) and IEEE STD 1003.5 (Ada binding to 1003.1). Ted noted at this WG9 meeting that these have gone forward.
The reaffirmation ballot for 1003.5 has been combined with reaffirmation of IEEE STD 1003.5b-1996, so that the combined document will be in sync. There was one negative vote on the ballot, so the negative comments are currently being recirculated. The result should be known by the time of the WG9 meeting.
IEEE STD 1003.5-1992, which corresponds to SC22 NP 22.21.04.02, was balloted in JTC1 as ISO/IEC DIS 14519-1 under the fast-track procedure, starting back in 1993. The ballot was completed, but the standard was never published by ISO. (I don't know why.)
The combined document IEEE STD 1003.5-1992 as amended by IEEE STD 1003.5b-1996 -- the same document that is going through IEEE reaffirmation ballot -- is now being submitted for fast-track ballot in JTC1, as DIS 14519. The vote started on 18 September 1997 and terminates on 18 March 1998.
There are several Ada language binding projects in the IEEE that do not have corresponding SC22 work items. These include:
If there is sufficient international interest, perhaps one or more of these should be considered. There are several other POSIX standards for which Ada binding projects might be appropriate. Volunteers are welcome.
Ada standards people are accustomed to being told that Ada has lost the "language wars" to C (or is that C++? or is that Java?). The POSIX folks are getting a taste of the same situation now.
IEEE PASC, which sponsors the POSIX standards, has been under pressure from commercial interests (most vocally Hewlett-Packard) to stop making new standards. The contention is that Microsoft has won the OS war, UNIX is a "dead" operating system, and that attempts to further improve a dead OS cause trouble for the vendors (like HP) who are trying to get out of the business of producing and maintaining operating systems. Apparently, these hardware vendors are unhappy that the "dead" OS won't keep still.
Reaffirmation of P1003.5 and P1003.5b has been completed and sent to the IEEE Standards Board.
The ISO equivalent of 1003.5b is on fast-track ballot in JTC1.
P1003.5c is in IEEE balloting.
From convener's note of 25 August 1997: I know that some of you are interested in the topic of "internationalization" of Ada and other programming languages. Perhaps you would be willing to comment on the attached material.
WG20 has already written a Draft Technical Report on the provisions that programming languages should make to achieve the goals of internationalization. In order to ease the implementation of such provisions, they are considering proposing a new work item to provide an API for access to internationalization information and cultural conventions.
On the other hand, they are not interested in pursuing the NWI if none of the language WGs would be willing to use it. Therefore, they are looking for comment from the other WGs. Please send your comments to me. I will bundle them and forward them to WG20.
Liaison report copied from the minutes of WG14: Plum reported that the second CD ballot for the pending C++ standard has closed. The committee has received a long list of public comments on the second CD, but the good news is that there appear to be no diametrically opposed comments in this set of ballots. Plum believes most delegations are satisfied with the current draft pending the resolution of its comments. The committee meets again in two weeks to organize the comments from the second CD and begin to resolve them. The committee plans to complete a new draft by November, at which time the SC22 Secretariat will determine if the new draft satisfies the requirements for a DIS.
From N335, WG9 Convener's Report of SC22 Plenary Meeting: Some of you may be interested in the status of the CD balloting of the C++ document. The WG convener reported that about ten issues remain to be resolved; the others have been unanimously resolved. It is expected that the final issues will be resolved and the document will go to Final DIS ballot shortly after their planned November 1997. There is some consideration of a plan whereby the WGs for C and C++ will collocate their meetings and a plan whereby the C++ WG and the C WG would agree that the responsibility for maintenance of the common portions of the languages would be delegated to the C WG.
From a press release by Tom Plum, convener of WG21: The process of standardizing the C++ programming language began eight years ago, in late 1989. The international C++ Working Group is ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG21; the USA C++ Technical Committee is J16. This week, J16 has been meeting co-located with WG21. All the delegations present at this meeting have decided that the technical content of the standard for C++ is now complete and stable. Thus, the C++ Working Paper will be approved at this week's meeting, to be forwarded to ISO/IEC JTC1 to become a "Final Draft International Standard" (FDIS). No further changes can be made to an FDIS.
During the week of the WG9 meeting, the Final DIS for C++
was submitted; it is very likely that we shall see an
international standard for C++ by the end of 1998.
Java Study Group
From N335, WG9 Convener's Report of SC22 Plenary Meeting: Some of you may be interested in the status of issues related to Java. The convener of the Java study group reported that the request of Sun Microsystems for recognition as a PAS submitter was disapproved with comments from several nations. At this time, Sun has not yet responded. The JSG convener also reported that ECMA (European Computer Manufacturers Association) has approved standard 262 on ECMAScript, the language commonly known as JavaScript. Their standard is publicly available on the ECMA web site and will be submitted to JTC1 for fast-track processing.
From Liaison Report of the Convener of the Java Study Group: JTC1 is in the process of polling each of its members about whether their votes on Sun's application to be recognized as a PAS submitter would change based on Sun's reply to the previous ballot. That issue doesn't close until November 11. Details are available on both the JavaSoft and JTC1 TAG Web sites and in the trade press.
The Java Study Group is waiting to determine its future role until this issue is resolved.
WG9 members who have not already done so are encourage to participate or follow the work of the Java Study Group by subscribing to our mailing list as described on our Web page http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/jsg.
Convener's summary: The base standard for IRDS is: ISO/IEC 10728:1993, Information technology -- Information Resource Dictionary System (IRDS)--Services Interface. The Ada binding to IRDS is: Amendment 2:1996 to ISO/IEC 10728:1993, Ada language binding. Information regarding ISO standards can be found at http://www.iso.ch.
As part of the reengineering of JTC1, SC21 has been dissolved and its responsibilities assigned to other SCs. There are no plans to reestablish liaison to working groups now responsible for IRDS.
From Jim Moore: IEEE Std 990 on the use of Ada as a PDL will be administratively withdrawn during 1998 because it has reached its maximum age of 5 years. There is no known interest in revising the standard to the level of Ada 95.
I am the Ada representative (AdaJPO/WG9 represenative) to IEEE Standards Coordinating Committee 20, the Automatic Text Equipment (ATLAS) Comittee. Since 1989, IEEE has had a standards project to do an Ada binding to the ATE language ATLAS. This was once Project 1226, and produced IEEE Stds 1226.1 and 1226.2. The 1226 Group has been redirected to non-Ada things (and may be near death). The Ada/ATLAS portion was given a new IEEE project number, P1446, working in the same group.
Recently, there has been a falling off of interest and participation as
the Ada Mandate slipped, starting with the removal of the Ada
requirement for the ATE for F-22. But there was still some interest and
the project has continued slowly. With the final end of the Ada Mandate
(and after a few months of thinking about it), industry has completely
abandoned any interest in Ada/ATLAS and P1446. As a result, the Project
will be withdrawn at the SCC20 meeting next week.
ARA, Joyce Tokar
Joyce Tokar made the following ARA Liaison report of ARA activities.
The ARA met on the evening of Wednesday, 12 November, 1997. During this meeting, the ARA focused on the issues associated with the closing of the AJPO which is scheduled for October 1998. The primary issues of concern were:
Information about each of these issues of concern:
The following item was added to the agenda for subsequent discussion: U. S. suggestion for work on interfaces to Java, C++ and ODBC. In particular, the US proposed that a new working group be established to investigate the creation of an officially approved set of packages for Java, C++, and ODBC; the working group could define the set of packages to be delivered to the ARA.
Jim Moore, as chair, followed up with this as an administrative action.
The following Rapporteur Group Chairs are reappointed: Erhard Ploedereder (ARG), Currie Colket (ASIS RG), and Brian Wichmann (Annex H RG). The responsibility for designating additional members of the RG is delegated to the respective RG chairs.
An Interface Rapporteur Group (IRG) is to be created under the temporary chair of David Emery with membership of Vincent Celier, and others to be designated by National Bodies in the upcoming weeks. The IRG is directed to present recommendations at the June WG9 meeting to include the following:
Adjournment occurred shortly after noon.
All items are appropriately linked.