BRITISH COMPUTER SOCIETY - FORTRAN SPECIALIST GROUP
Minutes of AGM held at Birkbeck College, Malet Street
London, on Monday, 11 April 1983
Present: W W Flexner Retired
K Graupner ICL c/o UKAEA, Culham
S Hilder Independent
A Lawrence Datalink
B L Meek Queen Elizabeth College, London
J D Murchland
D T Muxworthy Edinburgh University
M Nunn CCTA
T D Palmer Computer Ltd
T L van Raalte MOD
N Taylor National Computing Centre
D M Vallance Salford University (Secretary)
J D Wilson Leicester University (Chairman)
Addresses: Chairman John Wilson
Computer Laboratory
University of Leicester
Leicester LE1 7RH
Secretary Mike Nunn
CCTA
1. APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE
Apologies were received from Alan Clarke and John Reid.
2. MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING [7 February 1983]
Section 7 The second sentence should read: "The technical content of
"BSF" would not conflict in any way with the current ANSI Fortran
Standard, ..."
The minutes were approved.
3. MATTERS ARISING
It was noted that there is still a great deal of work needed to make the
ISO and ANSI Graphics Fortran bindings identical.
The Chairman has written to the DOI regarding funding for a certification
scheme for Fortran 77 compilers. The matter is being discussed internally
in the DOI and a reply is expected shortly.
4. ELECTION OF OFFICERS
The following officers were elected:
Chairman : J D Wilson
Secretary : M Nunn
Treasurer : T L van Raalte
M Nunn was elected to the Steering Committee.
5. TREASURER'S REPORT
The Treasurer will write the BCS informing them that the Group has done
all it can in attempting to repay the out of pocket expenses accrued by
Mr Roberts-Jones as a result of the Fortran Forum in 1981. It was the
opinion of the Group that the BCS should be asked to transfer a necessary
amount from the Group's bank account to another account pending a
payment being made to Mr Roberts-Jones.
When this matter has been resolved, the Treasurer will prepare a
provisional balance sheet for the year 1982-83.
6. BSI FORTRAN PROPOSAL
Brian Meek clarified on the previous remarks he had made on the above.
The proposed name for the standard is "Method of Specifying Requirements
for Fortran Language Processors". Mr Meek emphasised that any such
standard would embody ANSI X3.9 (1978) and would be a standard way of
specifying what a Fortran Processor (Compiler and Run Time System) should
do. It would be a set of rules for specifying the design/procurement/
testing of a Fortran Processor.
The proposal had been presented at the BSI OIS5 Committee in March where
it received unanimous approval. The feeling of that meeting was that
the standard would ultimately be taken up internationally.
Mr Meek asked for the Fortran Specialist Group's full support for the
proposed standard and that the Group should write a letter to the BSI
OIS-1 Committee noting that the above proposal had been made and that
the Group supported it.
A vote at the meeting rejected this action (For: 4 Against: 5
Abstained: 1).
It was felt by many of those present that Mr Meek could better achieve
his intended purpose by publishing in a reputable journal. It was felt
that, once this was done, his proposal would become a de facto
standard and would be widely read and cited.
7. FUTURE ACTIVITIES OF THE GROUP
Future meetings of the Group have been arranged to fall soon after
meetings of X3J3 so that the membership can receive up-to-date reports
of the proceedings from Drs Reid and/or Schonfelder who are now XJ3
members. The dates for the BCSFSG meetings are as follows:
6 June 1983
26 September 1983
5 December 1983
27 February 1984
16 April 1984 (AGM)
A number of suggestions for speakers at these meetings were made by
those present. The Chairman will contact the people mentioned as
soon as possible. Action Chairman
8. BCS BUSINESS
BCS members have been notified about progress on the Royal Charter.
An extraordinary general meeting will be held on 15 June 1983.
The Chairman has received a summary of the minutes of the 48th meeting
of the Netherlands Fortran Specialists Group.
David Fisher (Leicester University) has sent a letter to DOI requesting
funding for a regular X3J3 delegate and noting that the BCS Fortran
Specialist Group is an obvious point of contact with the UK Fortran
Community.
X3J3 has produced a new document, S7, which describes the complete new
language. All further proposals must be made as amendments to S7.
It is planned to take a vote on the draft standard in May 1985.
Core and modules has been replaced by a revised architecture. Obsolete
features, such as ASSIGN, cannot now be dropped without a notice period
of one revision of the standard. The architecture can be represented
as
MODULE 1 MODULE 2 .... MODULE N
| |
| |
------------------------
| USE STATEMENT |
------------------------
| | |
| OBSOLETE | |
| FEATURES | CORE |
| MODULE | |
| | |
------------------------
'Bundles' are a replacement for shared data. A bundle is analogous to
a BLOCK DATA statement. You can define operators either by means of
an internal function or as an operator.
'Event handling' is one of the most critical unresolved items. The
design of event handling has been 'contracted out' to Ewics in Europe.
A proposal will be voted upon at the May X3J3 meeting. X3J3 has insisted
on one of the following when an event handler returns control:
1) STOP
2) Continue with the next Fortran statement
3) Return from program unit to statement following the call
10. DATE OF NEXT MEETING
Monday, 6 June 1983, at Birkbeck College, London WC1. In the afternoon,
John Reid (Harwell) will lead a discussion on the Fortran 8X array
processing proposals.
D M VALLANCE
3.5.83