JTC1/SC22
N1235
Title: Terms of Reference of the SC22 Ad Hoc Group on Cross
Language Coordination
Date: 1992-08-28
Status: Adopted by SC22 plenary in Ellevuori, Finland
1. The Ad Hoc Group on Cross Language Coordination (XLCG)
shall develop a draft Policy for the Application of Cross
Language Standards within SC22.
2. The policy shall cover all SC22 cross-language standards,
binding standards, and programming language standards, both
approved and under development.
3. The policy shall have the objective of ensuring that all
SC22 cross-language standards are appropriately addressed
by all SC22 programming language standards, and that cross-
language standards projects are undertaken with this
requirement in mind. (In particular, National Bodies
should consider the impact on language-development
resources before agreeing to cross-language projects, and
the scopes of cross-language projects should be carefully
set.)
4. The policy shall address at least the following issues:
a. how it is determined which standards are considered to
be cross-language standards and which standards are
considered to be programming language standards for
the purpose of the policy (it is noted that a standard
may be both a programming language standard and an
cross-language standard);
b. the appropriate categorization of cross-language
standards and the different policies that apply to
each category;
c. how it is determined whether and when a binding
between an cross-language standard and a programming
language standard should be created;
d. how the appropriate binding method for each binding
from a programming language standard to a cross-
language standard should be determined;
e. how it is determined which working group should define
the binding, and how consistency of the binding with
the intents of the cross-language and programming
language working groups shall be assured;
f. what kinds of conformance requirements are appropriate
for cross-language standards;
g. how the relative priority of programming language
projects, cross-language projects and binding projects
should be determined;
h. what SC22 involvement in management of inter-related
projects should be.
5. Since the policy will not be complete before the 1993 SC22
Plenary and several projects' documents may well reach DIS
by then, the following action should be taken immediately
following the 1992 JTC1/SC22 plenary meeting:
a. XLCG shall distribute to all SC22 working group
convenors the Cross-Language Coordination
Questionnaire included in this document as Attachment
2. Part 1 is to be completed for all SC22 programming
language standards. Part 2 is to be completed for all
SC22 cross language standards. Both parts should be
completed for standards that are both programming
language standards and cross-language standards.
b. Responses to the questionnaire should be completed by
the SC22 working group conveners and returned to the
XLCG convener by the date requested. (One effective
approach would be for the programming language working
groups, together with cross-language working groups,
to create enough of a binding to demonstrate the use,
implications and feasibility of the relevant cross-
language standard.)
c. For the purpose of the questionnaire the following
standards shall be considered to be programming
language standards:
Pascal
Extended Pascal
APL
COBOL
Fortran
BASIC
Ada
Modula-2
C
LISP
Prolog
FIMS
VDM
C++
M
For the purpose of the questionnaire the following
standards shall be considered to be cross-language
standards:
CLIP
CLID
LIA
POSIX LIS
FIMS
VDM
Internationalization
d. XLCG shall make the questionnaire responses available
to the SC22 National Bodies as soon as possible, in
order that the results can be useful during ballots
that occur before the 1993 SC22 plenary meeting.
6. The XLCG shall contact groups outside SC22 in order to
inform them of the activity of the XLCG, and to solicit
information about their projects that can be useful for the
development of the policy.
Attachment 1: Summary of Binding Methods
Binding methods (methods a to e are described in TR 10182)
a. Revision or extension to the language syntax in order to
support the cross-language facility (as by the programming
language compiler or interpreter).
b. Embedding "alien" syntax in the program text to support the
cross-language facility (as by a preprocessor).
c. Use of definition (as by another extension facility)
provided by the programming language standard to support
the cross-language facility (as by a standard header file).
d. Addition of library functions or procedures to support the
cross-language facility using mechanisms provided by the
programming language standard.
e. Support of the cross-language facility by mapping to the
structures and services of the language environment (as by
support of file structures or data types).
f. Direct normative reference from the language standard to
the cross-language facility standard.
g. Direct inclusion of (part of) the text of the cross-
language facility standard in the language standard.
Attachment 2: Cross-Language Coordination Questionnaire
Part 1: Questionnaire for Programming Language
Standard Projects
The following questions are to be addressed for each programming
language standard by the responsible working group.
1) Identify the programming language standard by project
number and title.
2) What facilities are defined by the programming language
standard to support bindings to cross-language standards?
Which binding mechanisms are supported by each such
facility?
3) How do conformance requirements of the language standard
affect bindings from this programming language standard to
cross-language standards?
4) Are there guidelines available for the development of
bindings into this programming language?
5) Are you indicating ``Future Directions'' in your project,
such as reserving name space, etc., for future revisions of
your standard so that working groups developing cross-
language or binding standards will know what to avoid?
6) Are there technical areas, relevant to your standard, for
which new cross-language standards (within the scope of
SC22) would be useful?
Questions 7 through 18 are to be addressed for each cross
language (XL) standard.
7) Identify the cross-language standard being addressed by
project number and title (document number?).
8) Is a binding useful between the programming language
standard and the cross-language standard? Why?
9) Is a binding feasible between the programming language
standard and the cross-language standard? If not, why not?
10) Is work being done in your working group to develop a
binding for this programming language standard? If so,
what milestone has it reached? What is its expected
completion date?
11) What modifications to the cross-language standard are
necessary for it to be compatible with your project?
12) What modifications to the cross-language standard would
make it a more natural fit for users of your programming
language?
13) What modifications would your working group have to make to
the programming language standard to accommodate the cross-
language standard? Does your working group have the
necessary expertise and resources to this work? Is your
working group prepared to do the work for these
modifications? If so, how long would it take?
14) Are there any parts of the cross-language standard you
cannot accommodate at all for technical reasons, or would
much prefer to not accommodate for either philosophical or
technical reasons? If so, which and why?
15) Which binding methods could be used? Which of these
methods is preferred? (see attachment 1, Binding Methods)
16) Which working group do you think should define the binding?
If your working group had to do the binding, by when could
it be produced?
17) Would it be appropriate to include the binding in your
standard? Why?
18) If the binding had to appear in your next revision or
addendum, how would that affect your delivery schedule?
Part 2: Questionnaire for Cross-Language Standard
Projects
The following questions are to be addressed for each cross-
language standard by the responsible working group.
1) Identify the cross-language standard being addressed by
project number and title.
2) What is the purpose of this cross-language standard?
3) What are the conformity requirements of this cross-language
standard?
4) Does the value of this cross-language standard depend on
its widespread support by programming language standards?
5) Does the value of this cross-language standard depend on a
common binding method being used for all programming
language bindings?
6) What are the dependencies between this cross-language
standard and other cross-language standards?
Questions 7 through 17 are to be addressed for each programming
language standard.
7) Identify the programming language standards being addressed
by project number and title (document number?).
8) Is a binding useful between the cross-language standard and
the programming language standard? Why?
9) Is a binding feasible between the cross-language standard
and the programming language standard? If not, why not?
10) Is work being done in your working group to develop a
binding for this cross-language standard? If so, what
milestone(s) has it reached? What is its expected
completion date?
11) What modifications to the programming language standard are
necessary for it to be compatible with this cross-language
standard?
12) What modifications would your working group have to make to
the cross-language standard to accommodate the programming
language standard? Does your working group have the
expertise and the resources to do the work? Is your
working group prepared to do the work for these
modifications? If so, how long would it take?
13) Are there any parts of the programming language standard
you cannot accommodate at all for technical reasons, or
would much prefer to not accommodate for either
philosophical or technical reasons? If so, which and why?
14) Which binding methods could be used? Which of these
methods is preferred? (see attachment 1, Binding Methods)
15) Which working group do you think should define the binding?
If your working group had to do the binding, by when could
it be produced?
16) Would it be appropriate to include the binding in your
standard? Why?
17) If the binding had to appear in your next revision or
addendum, how would that affect your delivery schedule?