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Annual Report for: J15
Covering the Period
from April 26, 2006 to April 25, 2007
INCITS page for J15: http://www.incits.org/tc_home/j15.htm
Other
administrative information
Informal
Description of Work:
The J15 committee is engaged in the process of maintaining the
X3.238:1994 ANSI Standard for the Programming Language PL/B (Projects 662-M).
PL/B is a modern business programming language, suitable for on-line
interactive business processing in both stand-alone and networked environments.
The PL/B Programming Language is currently in use on a wide variety of
operating systems and hardware platforms, and is supported by many compiler
companies, tool companies, and application programming consultants.
J15 is in
maintenance mode and has not conducted any meetings during the period of time
covered by this annual report. The committee is not considering any
revisions to this standard at this time.
2. Significant Accomplishments
Since
issuance by ANSI of the Standard for PL/B, X3.238:1994, the J15 Committee has
not received any requests to interpret the Standard and has not discovered any
items which require clarification or amendment in the Standard.
None.
None.
a.
Previous Year’s Meetings:
|
Meeting
Number |
Date |
Location |
|
None |
|
|
b. Next Year’s Planned Meetings:
|
Meeting
Number |
Date |
Location |
|
None |
|
|
None.
a.
Officers:
|
Position (and training date) |
Name and organization
represented |
|
Chair (trained 7/14/1997) |
Gary Raymond, Infopro Inc. 630-978-9231
/ gary@sysmaker.com |
|
Vice Chair |
Steve White, 903-881-0400
/ sales@sunbelt-plb.com |
|
Secretary |
|
|
International Representative |
|
|
Vocabulary Representative |
|
b. Membership:
There are currently four active J15 committee members:
http://sysmaker.com/infopro/x3j15/whomem.htm
8.
Future Trends and Related Technical Activities
The J15
committee has identified and discussed a number of trends which will impact
business software languages and standards development. Some of these trends
have been partially addressed through enhancements already incorporated in our
draft standard document for the PL/B Programming Language. Most trends listed
here remain to be addressed in the future, subsequent to our present work in
developing a first standard for PL/B.
|
a. |
GRAPHIC,
WEB ORIENTED INTERFACE: Business software has become more graphic and web
oriented. Most software users will expect programs to use web enabled
technology, graphical icons, pull-down (or pop-up) menus, and pointing device
(mouse, track-ball, touch-screen, etc.). |
|
b. |
SHARING
COMMON RESOURCES OVER INTERNET AND PRIVATE INTRANETS: The age of web
computing come upon us. Software languages will need to provide better
facilities to support common data access among disparate users attempting
simultaneous access over “inter” (public) and “intra” (private) TCP/IP
networks. Ability to access and update
data and perform coordinated transactions over the internet needs to be
supported by all future business languages. |
|
c. |
UTILIZATION OF SQL: Business software languages and application
programs will be required to interface to various databases through SQL.
Without SQL, although programs may be portable between hardware environments,
it is doubtful that they will be compatible with other programs written in
different languages, or accessing other databases. In the business world,
compatibility is far more important for a single data processing installation
and user of business software than portability (which tends to be more
important for software providers). SQL is rapidly gaining popularity as a
vehicle for providing both desired features. |
|
d. |
PARALLEL
PROCESSING: Tremendous opportunity exists within the near future to harness
the power of multiple processor computers. Currently, no ANSI business
programming language provides substantial means to make use of parallel
processing power within an individual program. Programming techniques, and
language constructs to support these techniques, need to be developed to
address this issue. |
|
e. |
INTERNATIONAL
MARKET: Business software languages need to support greatly expanded
character sets, expanded keyboard interactivity, and greater control over
keyin and echo back of characters. All
computer languages need to fully support 16-bit UNICODE, in addition to their
historic 8-bit language sets. This has
important implications for character comparison, sorting, and indexing
operations. |
|
f. |
DYNAMIC
SOFTWARE MODULARITY: With increasing sophistication of software and object
orientation, it is important for compiled languages to dynamically link to
other compiled software modules (perhaps written in different languages),
passing parameters and returning with values. Dynamic linking would be
performed at run time, not compile or link time. Software modules (or
objects) would become useful without need for users to have compilation and
linking programs. Software modules could be written in the most appropriate
programming language (adapted for dynamic linking) and would contain
information about passing parameters accessible to other programs and modules
at run time. Speed of dynamic linking would need to be optimized to make this
process fast. |
|
g. |
CLIENT
/ SERVER: Modern computer software has been oriented toward a graphic user
interface and toward a either a client/server or web-client/server model of
computing. These trends facilitate easier training of personnel to accomplish
sophisticated tasks, and facilitate home office and remote computing.
Programming languages will need to provide better facilities to write
effective server facilities and graphical client programs. Future programmers
should not be required to rely on proprietary vendor products, but should be
able to utilize ANSI standard languages to quickly and efficiently program
portable client/server systems. |
|
h. |
INTERNET:
Most new business computer software development is now developed with
built-in Internet compatibility in addition to stand-alone operability. The
committee has recognized this trend and feels that it is important |
9. Other Administrative Information
None.