This report is in the same form as past "Business Plans." Other items are included in an additional Section 4.
July 2001-July 2002
Coordinate ISO standards for Programming Language Ada
The Technical Corrigendum was published 2001-06-01. WG9 has determined that the best strategy for updating the standard is to develop an Amendment with completion anticipated in 2005. A request for project subdivision is currently under ballot as SC22 N3241.
WG9 has voted that this standard should be confirmed and requests SC22 to endorse the request. See 4.1.1.
WG9 has voted to withdraw this standard and requests that SC22 endorse the request. See 4.1.2.
No action is requested.
WG9 requests that this standard be made freely available on an appropriate web site. The request has been circulated as SC22 N3256. See 4.1.3.
No action is requested.
Preliminary work is underway on two projects:
This standard has been withdrawn.
This standard has been withdrawn.
Withdrawal of this standard was endorsed by the 1999 SC22 Plenary and is expected to be implemented in 2001.
Withdrawal of this standard was endorsed by the 2000 SC22 Plenary and is expected to be implemented in 2002.
There are two major professional societies in this area: the Special Interest Group on Ada (SIG) of the Association for Computing Machinery and Ada-Europe. The semi-annual meetings of WG9 are scheduled to coincide with the major conferences organized by these two groups. The UK and Germany Heads of Delegation to WG9 are officers of Ada-Europe. SIGAda is considering whether it should request Category C liaison with WG9.
There is one major vendor consortium, the Ada Resource Association (ARA). Informal liaison with ARA is maintained via the Chair of the US TAG who is also a member of the ARA.
The United States Department of Defense (DOD) has a continuing interest in the Ada language. Liaison is assured because DoD funds the convener to serve in his position.
Although support for Ada has declined in the US defense sector, Ada remains the language of choice for major parts of the real-time, embedded systems community. Ada usage in other sectors of the marketplace seems to be stable. There is demand for minor improvements while retaining the stability of the existing language. This motivates WG9 to update the language standard by means of an Amendment rather than a Revision.
Achieved during the past year:
All new work item suggestions are screened by the requirement for active support from five national bodies. This has worked well, resulting in explicit commitments from national bodies supporting a possible project.
The recent JTC1 resolution permitting WG participation by SC22 O-members has provided benefit to WG9. WG9 is actively searching for other O-members who might choose to participate.
The current convener of WG9 was appointed to another three-year term at the 2000 SC22 plenary pending endorsement by the US. Endorsement was received.
WG9 uses three Rapporteur Groups to perform the drafting of its technical documents. This allows WG9 itself to meet only twice per year--for approximately five hours at each meeting. When appropriate, WG9 delegates initial drafting to national bodies. The US contributed the draft of the recently approved Technical Corrigendum. We expect to repeat this strategy with the planned amendment to ISO/IEC 8652.
The following deliverables are anticipated during the next 12 months:
Routine, but efficient, processing will suffice to achieve our goals.
Unexpectedly heavy technical comment could delay any of the items described above. WG9 has mitigated this risk by providing mechanisms for full treatment of NB technical concerns at the WG level.
National body participation in WG9 is stable. The JTC1 approval of the resolution permitting SC22 O-members to participate in working groups has yielded one new member for WG9. Other members will be solicited.
The Amendment described above is the most important item in WG9's current work programme. WG9 anticipates its completion by 2005.
This section lists other items that are not part of the "Business Plan" but are appropriate for Convener's Report.
SC22 is requested to endorse the confirmation of ISO/IEC 13813:1998, Generic packages of real and complex type declarations and basic operations for Ada (including vector and matrix types).
SC22 is requested to endorse the withdrawal of ISO/IEC 13814:1998, Generic package of complex elementary functions for Ada.
SC22 is requested to forward a request to JTC1 and any other appropriate bodies to make ISO/IEC TR 15942 freely available on an appropriate web site. WG9's request has been circulated as SC22 N3256.