ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5 N852

informal JLW report of X3J3 meeting 123, 1992 Nov 9-13 (New Haven)
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The principal objectives of this meeting were to (1) process as many of the 
interpretation issues as possible, (2) generate a preliminary review of HPF, 
and (3) refine the X3J3 reorganization plan.  Good progress was made on all 
three of these objectives.

At the start of the meeting there were approximately 95 outstanding issues.  
These included old unresolved issues and S20 items not yet at the balloting 
stage as well as new RFIs, but not the 58 items on the S20 ballot.  During 
the meeting all the "unresolved issues" were either resolved or recast into 
S20 items.  At the end of the meeting there were a total of 118 S20 items, of 
which
             33 are "X3J3 approved; ready for WG5"
             45 are "X3J3 draft response" and ready for X3J3 ballot
             40 are still at "X3J3 consideration in progress"

Those of the 45 that pass the X3J3 ballot (which will probably occur in 
December) will be added to the 33 ready for WG5.

A team of three people (Bierman, Himer, Phillimore) spent the week as an ad 
hoc SWAT team to review HPF/v04, primarily from a "how does it fit with 
Fortran 90" point of view rather than a technical functionality point of 
view.  Generally HPF gets high marks on this score, though several straw 
votes were taken on suggestions for specific recommendations.  It was agreed 
that the BHP team would prepare a letter to HPF consistent with this 
direction, have one final email review on the X3J3+WG5 network, then send it 
off to HPF in time for their December meeting.  The main two straw votes 
taken were (1) "directives vs syntax" (directives won, but the basic form of 
the directives should be consistent with the syntax approach) and (2) "an HPF 
module, or no, for packaging the HPF intrinsic functions" (an HPF module won, 
as the best way of managing the namespace, with the USE HPF statement treated 
as an appropriate directive for the HPF subset).

Two important agreements were reached relative to the X3J3 organization.  
First, an object-oriented subgroup (X3J3/OOF) was formed to explore this 
area.  Members of /OOF currently are Katz, Lahey, and J.Martin, with Lahey 
acting as interim subgroup head.  Katz will arrange for an OO tutorial for 
the next meeting.  Second, it was decided to try to schedule the next few 
X3J3 meetings so that /OOF, /parallel, and /posix subgroup meetings will not 
overlap with the interpretation work, giving members an opportunity to 
participate in both.  (/editorial and possibly /JOD, renamed to 
/requirements, will likely work fulltime on 1995 revision issues.)

Finally the US TAG session on Friday afternoon developed a recommended US 
position on the SC22 Varying String ballot (N1267) and decided to communicate 
with the X3 secretariat on the recently established IPF (International 
Participation Fee).  On the N1267 ballot, the recommendation is that the US 
vote NO, for one procedural and four technical reasons.  The thrust of the 
IPF letter is to communicate possible consequences of this fee and to suggest 
constructive alternatives.  The next TAG meeting was set, subject to 
reconsideration if unexpected responsibilities materialize, for May 1993.

Jerry Wagener