J4 Annual Report
Covering the Period from November 1998 to August 1999
Title of NCITS Subgroup: J4
Informal Description of Work: Development and maintenance of COBOL programming language
A revision of the ISO COBOL standard is being developed under national terms of reference which includes support for:
Interpretations of the 1985 standard have been published in COBOL Information Bulletin 24 (CIB24), CIB25, CIB-26, CIB-27 and CIB-28. CIB-29 is being developed. Work on developing the new standard has been given priority over interpretation of the 1985 standard, so no interpretations were approved during this reporting period..
Membership has remained at twelve throughout the year and we expect to gain a new member at the September meeting. Many members are finding it increasingly difficult to find time for J4 work in addition to their other work.
The schedule for the revision was revised this year because of the number of comments received during the internal review of the document.
a. Title: COBOL Information Bulletins (CIBs)
b. Target dates - Not applicable since CIBs are published on an as needed basis.
c. Project Description.
As interpretations are approved by J4, they are bundled into groups for publishing.
d. Publications during Past Year: None.
e. Statement of Progress and Current Status
The draft CIB-29 contains 9 interpretations at this time. J4 and WG4 are focusing on the revision and giving a lower priority to interpretations.
The status of the corresponding international project 22.01.01 has not changed during this reporting period.
a. Title: Programming Language COBOL
b. Target dates
Original date: 1995
Current date: October 1996
c. Project Description.
A revision of the ISO COBOL standard is being developed under national terms of reference which will add support for national character handling, exception handling, data validation, screen handling, object-orientation, enhanced interlanguage calling, standard arithmetic, boolean data-items, pointers, floating-point, native binary data types, cultural conventions and other needed features.
d. Publications during Past Year: None.
e. Statement of Progress and Current Status
A Committee Draft was forwarded for comment in September 1996. The U. S. public review on the CD resulted in 31 responses containing a total of 662 comments. J4 evaluated and combined these comments to form the U. S. position. SC22 received responses containing a total of 543 comments. J4 developed recommendations to SC22/WG4 for the responses to these comments. Responses have been sent to both SC22 and the U. S. commenters. After making the changes resulting from the resolution of these comments, J4 and WG4 reviewed the draft before submitting it as a Final CD. One hundred sixteen comment documents with over 1800 individual comments were received during the internal review. J4 plans to have these comments address by January 2000. J4 and WG4 will hold another internal review before submitting the Final CD.
The schedule of the corresponding international project 22.01.07 is as follows:
Stage Description Date
3.1 Initiate Final CD 6/2000 - contingency date 10/2000
4.1 Initiate DIS 9/2001 - contingency date 4/2002
5.0 IS 2/2002 - contingency date 12/2002
Information on the market relevance of COBOL is contained in the 1999 WG4 Convenor's Report.
a. Title: Addendum to ANSI X3.23-1985, Programming Language - Intrinsic Function Module for COBOL
b. Target dates: Not applicable
c. Project Description.
This project, which was completed in 1989, added the Intrinsic Function Module to the COBOL programming language.
d. Publications during Past Year: None.
e. Statement of Progress and Current Status:
This addendum will be included in the revised COBOL standard.
Project 640-M
a. Title: Correction Addendum to ANSI X3.23-1985 for Programming Language COBOL
b. Target dates: Not applicable.
c. Project Description.
This amendment corrects errors and resolves ambiguities in ANSI X3.23-1985, Programming Language COBOL.
d. Publications during Past Year: None.
e. Statement of Progress and Current Status:
This addendum will be included in the revised COBOL standard.
M-217 January 25-30 1999 - Phoenix, Arizona
M-218 March 15-26 1999 - Las Vegas, Nevada
M-219 May 17-22 1999 Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
M-220 July 12-23 1999 Salem, Massachusetts
b. Next Year's Planned Meetings
M-221 September 13-18 1999 - Minneapolis, Minnesota
M-222 November 14-19 1999 - San Diego, California
M-223 January 17-28 2000 - Carmel, California
M-224 April 6-14 2000 (J4: 6-8, 13-14; WG4: 10-12) Amsterdam, the
Netherlands
M-225 June 12-16 2000 - Boston, Massachusetts
M-226 August 14-18 2000 - Western U.S.
M-227 October 2000 - Chicago, Illinois
M-228 December 3-8 December 2000 - New Orleans, Louisiana
c. Officers
Chair:
Don Schricker (training: 11/18/97)
MERANT
189 Georgetown Road
Boxford, MA 01921
Tel: 978 887-6692
Fax: 978 887-6313
email: doncobol@mediaone.net
International Rep:
Barry Tauber (training 3/29/99)
Victor Consulting
42 Cumberland Dr
Lincolnshire, IL 60069
Tel: (312) 822-4437
Fax: (312) 236-8467
email: barry.tauber@cna.com
Vocabulary Rep & treasurer:
John Brieschke (no training necessary)
Unisys Corp. M.S. 4872
P.O. Box 64942
St. Paul, MN 55164
Tel: (612) 635-5291
Fax: (612) 635-5544
email: John.Brieschke@unisys.com
Secretary: resigned 8/99 - seeking a replacement
Raymond W. Fisher (training 7/17/94)
EDS
Mail Drop C-10
225 Grandview Avenue
Camp Hill, PA 17011-797
email: raymond.fisher@eds.com
Technical Editor:
Donald F. Nelson
Compaq Computer Corp
M.S. 1-02
19333 Vallco Pkwy
Cupertino, CA 95014-2599
email: donald.nelson@compaq.com
d. Membership
provided by NCITS Secretariat
e. Liaison Activities
The most active liaisons this year were SC22/WG4, SC22/WG20, OMG and Interex SIGCOBOL.
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG4 COBOL
WG4 has responsibility for the ISO COBOL standard. J4 develops this standard under national terms of reference. J4 members are also members of WG4. The convenor of WG4 and the chair of J4 work closely in order to synchronize schedules.
The Open Group (X/Open) COBOL Working Group
The X/Open COBOL working group has developed extensions to the COBOL language and published them in a Common Applications Environment. They are working with J4 to get these items in the next COBOL standard. There is some doubt that this group now officially exists, although informally it functions by electronic mail and WG4 still receives input from the liaison representative.
The Open Group (X/Open) Transaction Processing Working Group
J4 established liaison with this group because their work is of great interest to COBOL programmers.
Universal Coded Character Set - L2 and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2
With the adoption of IS 10646, the programming language committees have a lot of work to do for full, or even partial, compliance. In the pase, Ann Wallace, convenor of WG4, attended the SC22 ad hoc meetings on this topic.
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG11 Data Interchange
Liaison was established so that J4 can make use of the language independent standards.
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG20 Internationalization
Since the creation of WG20, J4 has had liaison in order to incorporate their work into future COBOL standards.
H2 Database
J4 watches the development of SQL3 to be sure that our object orientation meshes with theirs.
OMG - Object Management Group
J4 has established liaison with OMG to insure that our objects can interoperate with those of other languages. OMG has approved a COBOL Language Mapping, which provides a COBOL binding to them.
Interex SIGCOBOL
Representatives from Interex SIGCOBOL, who are COBOL users, have attended most of the J4 meetings during the reporting period. Their input on how new features of the language would be used has been invaluable in shaping the language.
f. Administrative Matters of Note
None.
g. Procedural Matters of Note
There were no changes made to the J4 internal procedures during the reporting period.
h. Recommendations
None
i. Market Impact
Interest is growing now that approval is getting closer. We expect to gain a new member after the September meeting.
Information on the market relevance of COBOL is contained in the WG4 Convenor's Report.
After the draft is submitted as a Final Committee Draft, J4 plans to begin work on a Technical Report for an OO Class Library.
Attachment 1 - Committee Projects:
provided by the NCITS Secretariat
Attachment 2 - Internal Procedures
There has been no change to the internal procedures during this reporting period.
Attachment 3 - Financial Statement -- TO SUPPLIED BY THE TREASURER
Note that there are 3 separate funds maintained and described below.
1. J4
| Beginning Balance | $ 5150.84 |
| Receipts | $ 8350.00 |
| Total | $13500.84 |
| Receivables Outstanding | $ 250.00 (COBOL Research Group, Dec. 1996 meeting) |
| Total Disbursements | $ 9155.78 |
| Debts outstanding | 0.00 |
| Current Balance | $ 4345.06 |
| Beginning Balance | $1800.10 |
| Receipts | $ 350.00 |
| Total | $2150.18 |
| Receivables Outstanding | 0 |
| Total Disbursements | $1999.39 |
| Debts outstanding | 0 |
| Current Balance | $150.79 |
This fund pays for that portion of our project editor work that has
been subcontracted out under committee direction. The funding was raised
by voluntary contributions from member companies and other interested parties.
| Beginning Balance | $6720.65 |
| Receipts | 0 |
| Total | $6720.65 |
| Receivables Outstanding | 0 |
| Total Disbursements | $1500.00 |
| Debts outstanding | 0 |
| Current Balance | $5220.65 ($5,145.65 is held by NCITS and $75.00 is held by J4) |