ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5 N942

                        JLW informal report
                        on the 1993 July 5-9
                WG5 meeting in Berchtesgaden, Germany

The two principal objectives of this meeting were (1) to process the results 
of the Fortran 90 defect management activities and (2) to establish 
requirements for the 1995/96 revision of the Fortran standard.

With regard to Fortran 90 defect management, Technical Corrigendum 1 (a list 
of edits to 1539:1991) was prepared which contains the WG5-approved items 
from X3J3/93-006r with defect type ERRATUM. One item in the 006r, 000013, not 
approved in the WG5 letter ballot but reconsidered and re-recommended by 
X3J3, was reconsidered and approved by WG5 and placed in Technical 
Corrigendum 1. No action was taken on 006r items with defect type 
INTERPRETATION; the two options available were to collect the approved 
interpretations into either (a) an ISO technical report or (b) a new annex to 
1539:1991. The fact that neither of these options were taken appears to mean 
that these interpretations will become official only by incorporation into 
the 1995/96 revision.

By far the most significant result of this meeting was resolution B9 (WG5-
N930), entitled "Content of the 1995 Revision". It specifies three categories 
of requirements: A. most important, B. highly desirable, and C. possible 
consideration [my classifications]. In the A category are the corrections, 
clarifications, and interpretations (cci) from defect management, modest 
editorial improvements, and the HPF features of FORALL, pure functions, and 
adding the DIM argument to MAXLOC and MINLOC. In the B category are object 
initializations, removal of conflicts with IEEE 754, ALLOCATABLE structure 
components, identification of additional obsolescent features, and several 
modest I/O enhancements. In the C category are a CPU time intrinsic function, 
derived-type parameters, allowing user-defined functions in specification 
expressions, intrinsic functions to provide support for IEEE 754, exception 
handling, object-oriented programming, and derived-type I/O. Resolution B9 
requests primary development body (X3J3) analysis of these and related items 
for the 1995 revision, and encourages X3J3 to "subcontract" development work 
as may be appropriate. The 1995 revision requirements will be finalized at 
the August 1994 WG5 meeting.

Though various procedural issues were debated in typical (sometimes 
passionate) fashion, WG5 successfully resisted the urge to over-manage the 
Fortran 90 interpretation and Fortran 95 development activities, and set firm 
directions for the 1995 revision. Therefore the strategic plan for Fortran 
standardization, established a year ago and reaffirmed (with updated 
schedule) at this meeting, appears to be working well, with increasing levels 
of confidence and trust in the associated processes.

Jerry Wagener
1993 July 19