ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5-N1293
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                 BRITISH STANDARDS INSTITUTION
          COMMITTEE ON PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES (IST/5)
                               
    UK National Activity Report presented to the meeting of
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5 (Fortran), Vienna, Austria, July 21-25, 1997

Brian Meek
Members of WG5 will have heard the sad news that Brian Meek died last week. 
Brian was one of the group who, at the Hague meeting in 1977, instigated the
formation of ISO Fortran Experts' meetings, which developed into WG5.  He was
a valuable and prominent member from the first meeting in 1978 until 1991. 
Since 1991 he had put his technical efforts more into language-independent
standards working groups whilst retaining an strong interest in Fortran.  More
generally however he had been a pillar, virtually the backbone, of UK
programming language standardization for over twenty years.  He was in his
second term as chairman of IST/5, the British counterpart of SC22, and was to
have been UK Head of Delegation at the SC22 meeting in August.  He was the
main organizer of the SC22 meetings held in the UK in 1981 and 1996 and had
attended most SC22 meetings as head, or member, of the UK delegation since
1977.

He was author, part-author or editor of numerous books, papers, articles and
reports to do with programming language standardization.  Amongst other things
he was the principal author and main driving force behind the production of
the first version of TR 10176 "Guidelines for preparation of programming
language standards" and he would somehow find time to help any programming
language project, national or international, which he considered worthwhile
and which was in need of resources.  He was a passionate advocate of
standardization leading by development rather than exclusively following
vendors' precedents.

Those of us who continued to work with him after 1991 valued his constant
support and encouragement and his vast knowledge of ISO procedures, precedents
and personalities.  When someone like Brian dies a huge amount of experience
and learning goes with him: it is doubtful if anyone now will produce the
definitive history of international programming language standardization for
which he was collecting material and on which he had intended to work in his
retirement.  He will be sorely missed, both personally and professionally.

Membership and meetings
The BSI Fortran Panel has 28 members, including observers and a graphics
liaison member.  Most of the panel's business is conducted by mail and e-mail
and it meets only when there are issues to be resolved which cannot be decided
otherwise.  There have been no panel meetings since the last WG5 meeting. Two
of its members are also members of the BSI Committee on Programming Languages,
the national counterpart of SC22.  The number of UK-based members of X3J3 is
three: Malcolm Cohen, John Cuthbertson and Keng Low.

Individual members, including of course the WG5 convenor, have continued work
on the various WG5 projects.

JTC1 and SC22 votes
There have been no new Fortran-related SC22 ballots since those reported to
the last WG5 meeting.  The UK voted 'no' on the revised DIS 2382-7
"Information Technology - Vocabulary - Part 7: Computer Programming" and DIS
2382-15 "Information Technology - Vocabulary - Part 15: Programming Languages"
based partly on their lack of correct alignment with Fortran usage.

In the WG5 letter ballot on Conditional Compilation in Fortran, the UK vote
was to continue the project.



                                        David Muxworthy
                                        IST/5/-/5 (Fortran) Convenor
                                        July 18, 1997