ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5 N2190 WG5 Business Plan and Convenor's Report for ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 2021 Plenary PERIOD COVERED BY THIS REPORT: 8 August 2019 to 1 July 2021 SUBMITTED BY: Steve Lionel 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 1539-1:2018 Fortran 2018 was published November 2018. TS 29113:2012 "Further Interoperability of Fortran with C" was agreed to be withdrawn in a ballot completed March 2019, as its contents are included in Fortran 2018. WG5 requested of SC22 that this TS be withdrawn, and this was granted March 2020. TS 18508:2015 "Additional Parallel Features in Fortran" was agreed to be withdrawn in a ballot completed March 2019, as its contents are included in Fortran 2018. WG5 requested of SC22 that this TS be withdrawn, and this was granted March 2020. 1.2.2 PROJECTS UNDERWAY 22.02.01.01 Programming Language Fortran - Part 1: Base language A new project ISO/IEC AWI 1539-1 was registered October 2020. The scheduled publication date is October 2023. Corrigendum 1 for Fortran 2018 was published April 2021 (N2182). Interpretations continue to be considered for inclusion in a future Corrigendum. The primary responsibility for maintenance of the base language has been delegated to INCITS/PL22.3. 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. WG5 intends to request withdrawal of this part, at the next SR, as it is obsolete. Most features provided by Part 2 have been subsumed by deferred-length allocatable character variables in Fortran 2008. The remaining functionality is proposed for the next revision (SPLIT procedure). 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 its maintenance. There is also contact and or liaison with several organisations including OpenMP Architecture Review Board MPI Forum IFIP WG2.5 - Numerical Software INCITS PL22.11 - C INCITS 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, former PL22.3 chair, has resigned from PL22.3. (Brian Friesen of Lawrence Berkeley National Labs is the current chair.) Mr. Nagle had been WG5's liasion with WG23 (Programming Language Vulnerabilities.) A draft Fortran Annex to the WG23 document had been developed, and at the February 2020 PL22.3 meeting, attended by WG23 convenor Stephen Michell, the document was reviewed and many edits suggested. Two WG5 members have stepped forward to evaluate continuation of the work. 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. Cray and Intel now have full support for Fortran 2018. Other compilers have various degrees of completeness of Fortran 2003, 2008 and 2018. 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. Additionally, a new web site (fortran-lang.org) and discussion list have been established to develop tools and ideas for future Fortran revisions. 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 development of most of the proposed features for the next revision "Fortran 202X". 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 2003 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 Planning for the next revision of the Fortran language are underway. 3.2 STRATEGIES Detailed plans for the next three years are contained in ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5/N2185. 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. The Coronavirus Pandemic caused WG5 to skip its 2020 joint meeting, and the 2021 meeting was held virtually. Despite this, significant progress was made toward the work plan and the revised schedule introduces only a six-month delay in the plan for the next revision. Further disruptions may impede progress. 3.4 OPPORTUNITIES WG5 has made extensive use of email for over 20 years to speed up technical development. Documents are now distributed by ISO Documents. An open web site is 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 straw ballots. 3.5 WORK PROGRAM PRIORITIES WG5's priority activity this year is the completion of work items for the next revision. In parallel, discussion of potential features for the subsequent revision is underway in a separate venue. 4. OTHER ITEMS 4.1 POSSIBLE ACTION REQUESTS AT FORTHCOMING PLENARY None. 4.2 PROJECT MANAGERS ISO/IEC 1539-1: Malcolm Cohen, UK ISO/IEC 1539-2: John Reid, UK 4.3 ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT DISTRIBUTION PL22.3: https://j3-fortran.org/ WG5: https://wg5-fortran.org/ ISO Documents: https://sd.iso.org/documents/ui/#!/browse/iso/iso-iec-jtc-1/iso-iec-jtc-1-sc-22/iso-iec-jtc-1-sc-22-wg-5 4.4 RECENT MEETINGS 2019/08/05-09 Tokyo, Japan 2020 Canceled 2021/06/21-30 Virtual 4.5 FUTURE MEETINGS 2022/07 Boulder, CO 2023/06 Manchester, UK (Tentative) 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.