July 25, 2002
August 2001 - July 2002
Ann Bennett
Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 4
IBM J63/F34
555 Bailey Avenue
San Jose, CA 95141
email: nwallace@us.ibm.com
Development and maintenance of ISO/IEC standards related to programming language COBOL.
None in this period.
The revised ISO/IEC 1989 is currently in FDIS ballot, which closes 09/04/02.
The revision provides major new features, including: cultural adaptability, large character set support, object orientation, exception handling, new data-types (bit, floating point, native binary), portable arithmetic, conditional compilation, user-defined functions, file sharing/record locking, and improved interoperability with other programming languages.
A concurrent registration and approval ballot for PDTR 19755 is in progress and closes 09/07/02.
None
WG4 cooperates closely with INCITS COBOL Technical Committee J4, to whom SC22 has delegated the technical development and maintenance of COBOL.
WG4 has liaisons with the following groups:
There is no apparent direct competition with any other standards development organization.
COBOL continues to be widely used for development and for enhancement and
re-engineering of existing applications. Many factors drive the market for COBOL
standardization:
The current FDIS addresses many of the market requirements for COBOL, but not all of them. Continued evolution of the international standard for COBOL is essential to provide the benefits of new technolgies and new environments to COBOL users worldwide.
WG4 meets as needed, usually once a year, and works by electronic correspondence between meetings. Experts from five "P" member countries participate in meetings: Germany, Japan, The Netherlands, the UK, and the USA. Two experts from "O" member New Zealand participated in the most-recent meeting.
Detailed technical development is delegated to INCITS J4. J4 has 9 members participating in detailed technical development - - 5 COBOL vendor organizations and 4 user or mixed vender/user organizations.
WG4 relies on WG20 as a resource in the areas of cultural adaptability and character handling. WG4 has made use of TR 10176 for specification of extended letters in programming language identifiers and of DTR 14652 for specification of uppercase to lowercase foldings for extended letters in identifiers.
WG4 will focus on the following:
ISO/IEC 1989:2002 is expected before year-end 2002. A PDTR for Object finalization is planned for early 2003.
WG4 relies on INCITS J4 to carry out the detailed technical work and to identify issues needing WG4 direction.
No risks are foreseen.
No opportunities have been identified beyond those noted in the Work Program Priorities.
WG4 has the following priorities:
This section includes items that are part of the Converner's report, but not part of the Business Plan.
I regret that I cannot continue to serve as convener of WG4 due to a change in my career path. I am certain that the U.S. will nominate an excellent replacement convener.
It has been my pleasure and honor to work with SC22 delegates, conveners, chairpersons, and secretariats and WG4 members these past years.
None.
Project 22.01.07, Revision of ISO 1989:
FDIS close |
September 2002 |
Final text to ITTF | October 2002 or sooner |
Project 22.01.07.01, Type 2 Technical Report for Object finalization:
Concurrent registration and
first PDTR approval ballot end |
September 2002 |
Second PDTR ballot start | April 2003 |
DTR ballot start | January 2004 |
Final text to ITTF | June 2004 |
5-8 November 2001, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (co-located with an INCITS J4 meeting)
10-13 September 2002, Nara, Japan
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