[Cobolforgcc-devel] FYI - Of Possible Interest to those following the COBOL Standardization effort

[William M. K. <wm...@ix...>]

I thought that some of you who "follow" COBOL Standards might be interested in
the "Convener's Report" for the upcoming SC22 meeting. Sorry if some of you get
multiple copies of this - or have already seen it.  If you have any "concerns"
that you think should be dealt with related to this report, the ONLY way to get
them conveyed is via your "National Standards Body".

To find out "who is" and "how to contact" your individual "National Standards
Body", see

  http://www.iso.ch/addresse/membodies.html


Full text follows:

"Business Plan and Convener's Report
JTC1/SC22/WG4 - Programming Language COBOL

August 1, 2000

Period Covered:
September 1999 - August 2000

Submitted by:
Ann Bennett
Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 4
 <snip>

1.    Management Summary
1.1    JTC1/SC22/WG4 Statement of Scope
Development and maintenance of ISO/IEC standards related to programming language
COBOL.

1.2    Project Report
1.2.1    Completed Projects
None in this period.

1.2.2    Projects Underway
22.01.07 Revision of ISO 1989:1985 --
The revision provides major new features, including: cultural adaptability,
large character set support, object orientation, condition 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.

Combined CD registration and CD ballots N2260 closed in January 1997. The
summary of voting is contained in N2382. WG4 responded to comments in N2616.
Development of changes in response to specific technical comments was completed
in 1998. Three national bodies requested that the document be improved in
quality. In response, WG4 held an internal quality review in 1999, which
resulted in substantial rework and the need for further internal review. That
review completed in May 2000 and associated rework is is progress. WG4 intends
to forward a document for Final CD ballot in February 2001.

1.2.3     Cancelled Projects
None

1.3    Cooperation and Competition
WG4 cooperates closely with NCITS COBOL Technical Committee J4, to whom SC22 has
delegated the technical development and maintenance of COBOL.

WG4 has liaisons with the following groups:

	SC22/WG20 - Ann Bennett
	SC22/WG11 - Don Nelson

2.    Period Review
2.1     Market Requirements
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:

Technology advances and the resulting spread of computers to end users makes it
mandatory that computer systems adapt to the languages of users. This gives rise
to a need in COBOL for support of large character sets and cultural
adaptibility. The current draft includes substantial support for large character
sets and cultural adaptability.

The trend in the industry is to web-enable COBOL applications, with COBOL
running on a server interacting with a non-COBOL user interface. This gives rise
to the need for enhanced interoperability with other programming languages and
system services. A variety of new datatypes, user-defined functions, and call
enhancements are provided in the current draft to support interoperability.

Market pressure for new technology led COBOL vendors to cooperate on
object-oriented design through the standardization process. Early
implementations of the object-oriented features in the draft are now available
and users are designing them into new applications.

Deployment of applications across workstations and distributed environments and
the growth of COBOL in Unix environments generated requirements for new features
in the language. These needs were met by implementor extensions to the language,
in different ways by different implementors, leading to a need for
post-implementation standardization. Many of these extensions are included in
the draft.

Growth of COBOL in the Unix market led X/Open (now Open Group) to develop a
Common Application Environment (CAE) providing a portable definition of features
essential in a Unix environment, but lacking in standard COBOL. The need for
portability with non-Unix platforms has resulted the inclusion of some of these
features in the draft.

The impact of year 2000 date handling generated a requirement for portable
year-2000 features; these are included in the draft and have been implemented.
Their utility extends beyond the year-2000 conversion requirements.

The current draft 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 technologies and new environments to
COBOL users worldwide.

2.2     Achievements
WG4 completed technical work to address CD comments and comments in a subsequent
internal quality review. Corrections resulting from that review are in progress.

2.3     Resources
WG4 meets as needed, usually once a year, and works by electronic correspondence
between meetings. Five countries are participating in meetings: Germany, Japan,
The Netherlands, the UK, and the USA.

Detailed technical development is delegated to NCITS J4. J4 has 13 members
participating in detailed technical development - - 6 COBOL vendor organizations
and 7 user organizations.

3.     Focus Next Work Period
WG4 will focus on quality and preparing the draft for Final CD ballot.

3.1     Deliverables
WG4 anticipates delivering a document for FCD ballot in the first quarter of
2001.

3.2     Strategies
Focus on progression of the draft to FCD ballot.

3.2.1     Risks
In order to support extended identifiers, WG4 is dependent on a normative
specification of character attributes, particularly upper and lower case
equivalents. WG4 has been planning to reference WG20's TR 14652. Certain issues
with respect to case folding need to be resolved to avoid divergence of
approaches across programming languages.

3.2.2     Opportunities
None

3.3     Work Program Priorities
WG4's highest priority is preparation of the draft for Final CD ballot. The next
priorities are development of a technical report for a finalizer feature,
development of a technical report for an object-oriented class library, and
processing of defect reports - in that order.

4.     Other Items
This section includes items that are part of the Converner's report, but not
part of the Business Plan.

4.1     Action Requests at the Forthcoming Plenary
WG4 requests that SC22 authorize development of a technical report for a
finalizer method and associated object-oriented language.

A quality review comment noted a deficiency in object-oriented design because
there was no feature for finalizing an object before garbage collection. Efforts
to design a finalizer method failed for lack of design consensus and concerns
that the technology is not yet stable. WG4 therefore proposes that a finalizer
method and any associated O-O language features be developed in a Technical
Report. WG4 requests that SC22 approve a subdivision of the COBOL work item for
development of that TR.

The following draft resolution is proposed:

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22
authorizes a subdivision of the COBOL work item for development of a technical
report for a finalizer method and associated object-oriented language elements,
and delegates the technical development to NCITS J4.

The WG4 convener requests that SC22 allocate time for a working session to
identify issues and anomalies in case folding and determine a consistent
approach across program languages, where appropriate.

4.2     Schedule
The schedule for project 22.01.07 is as follows:

	Final CD start  February 2001
	DIS start June 2002
	Forward IS to ITTF December 2002

4.3     WG4 Meetings
4.3.1     Recent Meetings
May 2000, Newbury, UK     (co-located with an NCITS J4 meeting)

4.3.2     Future Meetings
November 2001,     tentatively USA (to be co-located with an NCITS J4 meeting)
  "