Annual Report for: J15
Covering the Period from
April 26, 2006 to April 25, 2007
Title of INCITS Subgroup:
Links:
J15 web site: http://www.sysmaker.com/infopro/x3j15/
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: membership link or 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.