ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5 N988

            jlw informal report on X3J3 meeting 129
               1994 May 2-6, Incline Village, NV

The principal objectives of this meeting were essentially two: (1) make progress
on the WG5 technical requirements (B9 items - see X3J3/94-089) for Fortran 95
and (2) update the key standing documents in preparation for the upcoming WG5
meeting.

X3J3/94-009 is the standing document containing detailed proposals related to
the B9 items; 009 entries with "approved" status will be integrated into
X3J3/94-007, which is the draft F95 standard.  As of the end of the meeting, the
009 contains approved entries for B9 items A2, A3, A4, A5, B1, B2, B4.1, B4.3,
C1, and C3.  The 009 also contains entires in "draft" status, which are detailed
proposals supported in principle by X3J3 but which need more work and have not
yet gained full approval; 009 entries in this category at the end of the meeting
pertain to B9 items B4.2 (language evolution - direction approved but draft
received after the meeting) and C5 (condition handling).  Proposals exist for
items B3 (allocatable components) and C2 (parameterized derived types), but
these two areas have turned out to be harder than anticipated, problems remain,
and these proposals have not been placed in the 009.  On item C4 (IEEE support),
X3J3 will recommend to WG5 that this functionality be achieved with a collateral
standard.

Both the 007 and the 009 will be updated and made available to WG5 for its
upcoming meeting.  The 009 should be completely uptodate by that time; the 007
will reflect corrigenda (from the 006) and editorial (from the 008) decisions
but is not likely to include much from the 009 by the time of the WG5 meeting.

There are now nearly 180 items in document X3J3/94-006 (Fortran 90 defect
management), of which 15 will appear on a post-meeting X3J3 letter ballot and 39
are unresolved.

With minor edits, and except for the "stability issue", responses were approved
to the comments on the recent letter ballot regarding withdrawal of Fortran 77
(X3J3/94-153, attachment C).  The stability issue response will be reworded to
be more explicit about the status of F90 defect management.

The general feeling at this meeting seemed to be that in order to make the April
1995 target for delivery of the revision, the next X3J3 meeting (August) must be
the last one for technical work on the revision, and the November and January
meetings must be devoted to integration of the 009 into the 007 and editorial
polishing of the 007.

Jerry Wagener
94 May 9