Chairman's Report for 2000/2001

At the AGM the honorary officers of the group are required to report on any interesting things which they did last year.

For several years, the BCS Fortran Specialist Group has moved away from quarterly meetings and moved into using the web for information. The home page under the BCS Fortran Specialist Group links to information on WG5 and other Fortran standards activities. You can navigate and obtain the latest on Fortran on-line. This has replaced the written material which used to be circulated to our members in the past. Many thanks to Peter Crouch for maintaining the files and also doing the tracking.

Last year we contributed to the expenses of John Reid in his capacity of WG5 Convenor £187.60. Of this £34.36 was to attend a BSI meeting in London as preparation for the SC22 meeting at Nara, Japan. John got sufficient finding from elsewhere to cover the costs of going to Nara. The remaining £153.24 was to cover the shortfall in funding in his attending the WG5 meeting in Oulu, Finland.

For this year we intend to sponsor an event for the international ISO WG5 Fortran standards meeting to be held at BSI, from 30 July to 3 August - The last time WG5 met in England was 1991.

As ISO WG5 convenor John has to attend the London meeting for which no contribution at all is made by BSI, and a meeting in Hawaii in September. The FSG intend to provide John with a small contribution to his expenses for his valuable work on Fortran 2000.

As you can see from the afternoon session of the AGM a number of presentations were arranged spanning the whole Fortran Era from its inception in the 1950s to Fortran 2000 and beyond.

13.50	"The Origins of Fortran"
	A showing of the IBM film about the origins of Fortran, including informal interviews with Backus and colleagues.
14.10	Fortran Performance Issues
	"Comparing Fortran Compilers" by John Appleyard, Polyhedron Software Ltd
	"Copying of Pointer Arrays" by John Reid, JKR Associates
	To be followed by general discussion on performance.
15.30	Close

The AGM is nothing if it not used as a brainstorming forum where ideas are discussed and agreed so that a programme for future activities is developed. I hope that you will come to this important meeting and put forward your ideas. If you can not attend the AGM please communicate your ideas, (suggestions) to the Chairman or any committee officer. This would ensure the relevance and usefulness of the Fortran group.

Thank you all for your support during my tenure as Chair. Your support and loyalty to the Fortran Group in the forthcoming year is crucial if the group is to survive and continue its good work.

Christopher Lazou
30th April 2001.

Comments on this or any other of the Group's pages should be sent by email to the FSG Web Editor.