ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5 N1980 WG5 Business Plan and Convener's Report for ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 2013 Plenary PERIOD COVERED BY THIS REPORT: 1 July 2012 to 1 July 2013 SUBMITTED BY: John Reid 1.0 MANAGEMENT SUMMARY 1.1 JTC1/SC22/WG5 STATEMENT OF SCOPE The development and maintenance of ISO/IEC Fortran programming language standards. 1.2 PROJECT REPORT 1.2.1 COMPLETED PROJECTS 22.29113 Technical Specification on Further Interoperability of Fortran with C The ballot for the DTS on Further Interoperability of Fortran with C was concluded on 26 August 2012. The result was 10/1/18 (Approval as presented / Approval with comments / Abstentions). There were two comments from Germany, which were considered by WG5 and led to small revisions for the final version, which was published on 1 December 2012. 1.2.2 PROJECTS UNDERWAY 22.02.01.01 Programming Language Fortran - Part 1: Base language WG5 has decided that the next revision of the base language will be limited to the incorporation of corrigenda, editorial improvements, and the Technical Specifications, plus the removal of simple deficiencies in, and discrepancies between, existing facilities. Work has begun on the construction of the list of deficiencies and discrepancies and will continue during the coming year. The primary responsibility for maintenance of the base language has been delegated to INCITS/PL22.3. Corrigendum 2 to Fortran 2008 was completed during this period and published as ISO/IEC 1539-1:2010/Cor.2:2013(E) dated 2013-06-01. About 25 'interpretations' are under consideration, many of which have tentative conclusions that are expected soon to be ratified by WG5. It is expected that the third corrigendum to Fortran 2008 will be submitted later this year. 22.02.02 Programming Language Fortran - Part 2: Varying Length Character Strings WG5 continues to have responsibility for maintenance of this part of the Fortran standard; there has been no maintenance activity during the period. 22.18508 Type 2 Technical Specification on Additional Parallel Features in Fortran A New Work Item on a Technical Specification on Additional Parallel Features in Fortran was approved on 5 December 2012. The TS will provide support for features that were deferred during the development of Fortran 2008 because of insufficient time to reach consensus on their details. A working draft has been constructed and it is hoped that a PDTS will be available for balloting soon after the meeting of INCITS/PL22.3 in October 2013. 1.2.3 CANCELLED PROJECTS None. 1.2.4 CO-OPERATION AND COMPETITION WG5 cooperates closely with the ANSI INCITS/PL22.3 Fortran Technical Committee, to whom it has delegated the technical development of Fortran as well as the maintenance of Fortran 2008. There is also contact and or liaison with several organisations including OpenMP Architecture Review Board MPI Forum IEEE 754 - Floating point hardware IFIP WG2.5 - Numerical Software UPC Consortium ANSI PL22.11 - C ANSI PL22.16 - C++ with several of the PL22.3 and WG5 members and vendors also being members of the other organisations. Many of those responsible for the development of commercial Fortran compilers are members of PL22.3 and/or WG5. Dan Nagle (PL22.3 chairman) has been actively involved with WG23 (Programming Language Vulnerabilities). A draft Fortran annex has been constructed, see ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5/N1965, and has been forwarded to WG23. Subject to editorial corrections, it will be included in the next release of the WG23 TS. There are no competitive activities. 2.0 PERIOD REVIEW 2.1 MARKET REQUIREMENTS Fortran is the language of choice for much scientific, engineering, and economic programming, particularly for very large programs that have evolved over many years. There has been some delay over the implementation of Fortran 2003, but Cray and IBM now have full implementations and several other vendors have implemented most of the features. Some features of Fortran 2008, notably coarrays, are being implemented, and Cray has a full Fortran 2008 implementation. Most major Fortran compiler vendors are represented either on WG5 or its Primary Development Body, INCITS/PL22.3, as are three of the major research establishments that rely on Fortran for their scientific computing. In addition to vendor-supplied and specific mailing lists, there is an active email list and an active usenet newsgroup for users of Fortran, which provide valuable feedback from users. All these diverse sources are being used to guide the development of the language, both through revisions to the base language Standard, and through other related standards and technical reports. 2.2 ACHIEVEMENTS The main achievement during the period has been the publlication of the TS on Further Interoperability of Fortran with C (see section 1.2.1). 2.3 RESOURCES As elsewhere in the Standardization world, it is becoming increasingly difficult to persuade employers to provide the necessary funding for Standards activity. Most of the technical work involved in developing Standards and Technical Reports is performed by INCITS/PL22.3 under the strategic direction of WG5. All WG5 meetings since 2002 have been joint meetings with INCITS/PL22.3 in order to optimize its use of human resources. WG5 itself carries out much of its discussions via email, with an annual meeting, usually during the summer, and occasional other meetings at critical stages in the development of the base language standard. 3.0 FOCUS FOR NEXT WORK PERIOD 3.1 DELIVERABLES It is hoped that the PDTS on Additional Parallel Features in Fortran will be constructed by November 2013. It is intended that Corrigendum 3 will be forwarded by December 2013. 3.2 STRATEGIES WG5 operates under a strategic plan described in WG5 Standing Document 4, the latest version of which is ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5/N1349. In particular, projects for which WG5 is responsible may be handled by other Development Bodies, notably ANSI INCITS/PL22.3. Detailed plans for the next three years are contained in ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5/N1979. 3.3 RISKS As far as possible, WG5 tries to anticipate technical comments during international ballots by holding informal ballots of its members before any documents are submitted for ballot. Nevertheless, unexpected technical comments can always delay the planned schedule. 3.4 OPPORTUNITIES WG5 has made extensive use of email for over a decade to speed up technical development. Since 1995 most documents have been distributed via an official file server in the UK; all documents have been distributed in this way since 1997. An open web site is also used to provide non-technical, and other publicly available, information to interested parties. In addition to speeding up the distribution of documents, the use of electronic distribution and communication systems also provides many other benefits, such as the ability to rapidly carry out informal ballots of the members for various reasons. 3.5 WORK PROGRAM PRIORITIES WG5's priority activities this year are the maintenance of the base Fortran language Standard, ISO/IEC 1539-1:2010, and the development of a TS on Additional Parallel Features in Fortran. 4. OTHER ITEMS 4.1 POSSIBLE ACTION REQUESTS AT FORTHCOMING PLENARY None. 4.2 PROJECT EDITORS ISO/IEC 1539-1: Malcolm Cohen, UK ISO/IEC 1539-2: John Reid, UK TS on Further Interoperability of Fortran with C: Bill Long, USA TS on Additional Parallel Features in Fortran: Bill Long, USA 4.3 ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT DISTRIBUTION WG5: http://www.nag.co.uk/SC22WG5/ PL22.3: http://www.j3-fortran.org/ 4.4 RECENT MEETINGS 2011/06/27-07/1 Garching, Germany 2012/06/25-29 Markham, Ontario, Canada 2013/06/24-28 Delft, Netherlands 4.5 FUTURE MEETINGS 2014/06/23-27 Las Vegas, USA 2015/08 London, UK 2016/06 Boulder, Co, USA Note that WG5 normally meets annually, with extra meetings being held as/when necessary to process ballot comments or other high priority activities that do not accord with the regular meeting schedule. WG5's Primary Development Body, INCITS/PL22.3, meets three times each year. Other work is carried out via email.