ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5 N1837

                  Convener's report from SC22 meeting

                      John Reid, 20 September 2010


1. TR on Further Interoperability of Fortran with C

A year's extension was granted for the TR on Further Interoperability of 
Fortran with C. Note that our plan (see N1812) is to forward the PDTR
to SC22 in December 2010 and to construct the DTR in June 2011 at the
WG5 meeting in Germany. We need the extension in case we miss this, even 
by a month. We are not allowed another extension. If we do not get the 
DTR ready by June 2012, the work item will be cancelled. 

John Benito, C convener, again said he would be pleased to look at a 
draft once it is reasonably polished. 

2. TR on enhanced module facilities

Once Fortran 2008 is published, the SC22 Secretary will submit a request 
for withdrawal of TR 19767 on enhanced module facilities.

3. Part 3 of the Fortran Standard, Conditional Compilation

The SC22 Secretary will submit a request to JTC1 for a country vote on 
withdrawal of Part 3 of the Fortran Standard, Conditional Compilation. 

4. Part 2 of the Fortran Standard, Varying Length Character

Part 2 of the Fortran Standard, Varying Length Character, is due for
review this year. The decision will be made by National Body vote and is
likely to be for retention, just as was the case for Part 3. WG5 needs 
to consider at its next meeting whether to ask for Part 2 to be
withdrawn. 

5. Timeliness of the final vote on Fortran 2008

SC22 did not feel that the delay of about two months between submitting
our FDIS and the start of its ballot was long enough to justify a 
formal action.  

6. Corrigenda

There was some discussion of corrigenda and whether the standard should
be reprinted more frequently now that electronic publication has become
prevalent. I had always assumed that this could not be done without going
through the full revision processing with all its ballots, but it seems
that a simple mechanical reprint with the corrigenda changes incorporated
is possible. The decision is made by ITTF in Geneva. My view is that it
would be very helpful to do this and that we should ask for it. 

7. New ISO/IEC procedures

A tutorial was given on a new set of ISO/IEC directives that have come 
into force (Google 'ISO/IEC Directives' to see the actual documents).
My main problem with the new rules is that a CD ballot must be for 2, 3,
or 4 months. For our first CD on Fortran 2008, we needed more than 4 
months. The procedures for Type 2 TRs (the sort we use) are unchanged, 
but the documents will be called 'Technical Specifications' (TS).