ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5 N879

    JLW informal report on X3J3 meeting 124, 93 Feb 8-12, Ft Lauderdale
    -------------------------------------------------------------------

The principal objectives of this meeting were:
        - revise the requirements document (004)
        - complete the interpretation processing (006)
        - decide on HPF, LIA action, if any

The first objective had a high priority at this meeting because document 93-
004 (probably version 93-004r2) will constitute the X3J3 input to the 
requirements discussion at next July's WG5 meeting; there is only one more 
X3J3 meeting between now and July.  The form of 004 was established in Ft 
Lauderdale, as was the process of soliciting and processing suggestions for 
004.  The /JOR subgroup will be distributing additional details regarding 
these actions.

In terms of interpretation processing (not counting item 000000 edits, of 
which there were three new ones), 10 new interpretation items were added, 
bringing the total to 130, and 38 items were resolved.  That leaves 19 of 
the 130 unresolved.  There are 33 items on the now-active X3J3 letter ballot, 
and any that fail that ballot will add to the 19.

No further action was taken regarding HPF; the X3J3 comments on HPF that 
were in the meeting 123 minutes (those minutes were approved) had been sent 
to the HPFF and will be part of the HPF public review comments.  (The HPFF 
will process those comments at a meeting March 10-12.)  It was noted that an 
independent HPFF-like process has now been initiated to formulate a defacto 
standard message passing interface, currently known as MPI, to address that 
level of parallel computing.

With the revelation that X3J3 (and every other language committee) is a 
coordinating liaison to X3T2 on the proposed Language Independent Arithmetic 
(LIA) standard, the agenda item on the LIA report took on increased 
significance.  There was little support for the LIA but, not having 
considered the LIA as an X3J3 responsibility, the committee chose to write 
X3T2 expressing concern about the implications of some of the things it had 
heard about LIA and asking several "what if" questions.  (For example, what 
if the LIA is not entirely compatible with IEEE arithmetic or the Brown 
model?)  A letter to X3T2 was drafted that contained five such points and, 
after some revision, approved by the committee.  (The letter has been sent.)

Among other activities during the week: a good discussion on object oriented 
programming was led by guest speaker Denko Nebesh; the /parallel and /OOF 
subgroups met one morning, with about half the attendees participating 
in each; a straw vote indicated the committee wanted to try moving to 
an electronic (email) premeeting distribution; and David Mattoon 
accepted the challenge of succeeding Linda O'Gara as librarian 
(David_Mattoon_at_CTC@relay.proteon.com).

The next meeting will be May 10-14 in Champaign, IL, Kurt Hirchert hosting.  
That meeting will adjourn by 3pm Friday (the TAG session will be on 
Thursday), so that people can stay until the end and still make it home 
Friday night (at least, if home is in the US).  Please plan accordingly so 
that we have a full complement up until adjournment to prepare for the WG5 
meeting.

Jerry Wagener