JTC1/SC22
N3482
From:In my hurry to get this out, I made a numbering error. It should be N 3482.
My apologies.
-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Deane [mailto:mdeane@ANSI.org]
Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2002 2:33 PM
To: 'SC 22 Distribution List'
Subject: (SC22docs.1679) SC 22 N 3480 - SC 22/WG 3 Business
Plan/Convener's Report
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22
Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces
Secretariat: U.S.A. (ANSI)
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 N3482
TITLE:
SC 22/WG 3 Business Plan/Convener's Report
DATE ASSIGNED:
2002-08-22
SOURCE:
SC 22/WG 3 Convenor (L. Dickey)
BACKWARD POINTER:
N/A
DOCUMENT TYPE:
Other document (Open)
PROJECT NUMBER:
STATUS:
As this document was received after the July 26 deadline, it will be
reviewed at the upcoming SC 22 Plenary under Agenda Item 8.1 pending
approval for addition to the agenda.
ACTION IDENTIFIER:
FYI
DUE DATE:
N/A
DISTRIBUTION:
Text
CROSS REFERENCE:
DISTRIBUTION FORM:
Open
Matt Deane
ANSI
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New York, NY 10036
Telephone: (212) 642-4992
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Email: mdeane@ansi.org
_____end of cover page, beginning of document______________
Convener's Report
ISO/IED JTC1/SC22/WG3 - Programming Language APL
2002/08/22
Period Covered:
Submitted by:
Leroy J. Dickey
Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 3
Department of Pure Mathematics
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario,
Canada N2L 3G1
Email: ljdickey@math.uwaterloo.ca
1. Management Summary
1.1 JTC1/SC22/WG17 Statement of Scope
Development and maintenance of ISO/IEC standards
related to programming language APL
1.2 Project Report
1.2.1 Completed Projects
JTC 1.22.09.01 Programming Language APL
JTC 1.22.24.01 Programming Language Extended APL.
1.2.2 Projects Underway
JTC 1.22.09.02 Character Repertoire for APL
JTC 1.22.24.02 Character Repertoire for Extended APL
These projects are in the editing phase.
JTC 1.22.09.02 is intended for inclusion with IS 8485.
JTC 1.22.09.02 is intended for inclusion with IS 13751.
Character Repertoire for APL (1.22.09.02) will be
published alongside IS 8485, whereas Character
Repertoire for Extended APL (1.22.24.02) will be
published alongside IS 13751.
1.2.3 Canceled Projects
None
1.3 Cooperation and Competition
2. Period Review
2.1 Market Requirements
APL is a general purpose computing language that finds
it most important applications in those areas that
benefit by the organization of their date in arrays.
The biggest groups of users are those in management of
financial and actuarial data, but it is also used
by largest airline in the world and for production
by one of the largest computer manufacturers in the
world.
Two major financial houses have developed dialects of
APL for their own internal use. There are rumours
that one of these might enter the public domain in
the near future.
The vendor of another dialect of APL called J now
holds its own user conferences. Adherants to this
language think that it may replace APL.
2.2 Achievements
The projects
JTC 1.22.09.01 Programming Language APL
JTC 1.22.24.01 Programming Language Extended APL.
are complete.
The projects
JTC 1.22.09.02 Character Repertoire for APL
JTC 1.22.24.02 Character Repertoire for Extended APL
are well underway. We expect completion of writing in 2002.
2.3 Resources
The working group WG3 meets as needed, usually once a
year, and works mainly by electronic correspondence
between meetings. This year nine experts from six
countries, namely Canada, The United Kingdom, The
Netherlands, France, Denmark and United States of
America, and one of the experts was a liason person
from the Association for Computing Machinery.
3. Focus for the Next Work Period
To complete the APL Character Repertoire.
3.1 Deliverables
The text for APL Character Repretoire is pending.
3.2 Strategies
Work hard.
3.2.1 Risks
WG3 suffered from a decline in official support for
standardization. One volunteer was discouraged from
participation when the national member body imposed
an unreasonable expectation of the time commitment
required to to the job (half time). Two other
volunteers have been discouraged by national mamber
bodies who set financial hurdles too high.
In spite of the conspiracy and antipathy within the
standards world, there are still many highly productive
APL programmers and corportations who are using APL.
3.2.2 Opportunities
There is need for a new standard for moving data
between APL applications. Three APL vendors are
cooperating in the implementation of SCAR "Self
Contained Array Representation". The APL Character
Repertoire has aided in this effort.
WG11 might find this interesting, since the developers
claim that they can use this scheme to communicate not
only between sessions of different implementations of
APL but also with applications running in other
languages.
3.3 Work Program Priorities
(1) APL Character Repertoire
(2) Perhaps SCAR.
4. Other Items
In future, it is likely that the APL working group will
move into a maintenance mode and stand prepared to
answer questions about interpretation.
4.1 Action Requests at the Forthcoming Plenary
Renew IS 8485 when it comes up for renewal
Renew IS 13751 when it comes up for renewal
4.2 Schedule
None.
4.3 WG3 Meetings
Currently only by e-mail
4.3.1 Most Recent Physical Meeting
Berlin, 2000-07-23.
4.3.2 Future Meetings
None scheduled at this time.