------- ASISWG at Tri-Ada'92 On Monday, 16 November 1992, at Tri-Ada'92, the SIGAda Executive Committee met from 2:00-6:00 PM. Thomas Shields and Clyde Roby attended this meeting. After a short discussion about the ASISWG Charter, which Tom Shields will change according to the suggestions of the Executive Committee, the SIGAda Executive Committee unanimously approved the formation of the ASIS Working Group under SIGAda. On Tuesday evening, 17 November 1992, ASISWG held its first officially sanctioned SIGAda Birds-of-a-Feather session. Tom Shields, chair of ASISWG, gave a slide presentation about ASIS: What is ASIS, ASIS goals, Alternatives to ASIS, Benefits of ASIS, Why is ASIS Read-Only, History of ASIS, What is ASISWG, What is the ASISWG agenda. You can send email to Tom at Shields@STARS.Reston.Paramax.com to request a hardcopy set of these slides. During the discussion period which followed Tom's presentation, these points were brought out. o We would like to release an early version to ASISWG in early December before there is a really publicly available release. o Vendors would like ASIS to be stable so that they can have a good target to work to. o ASIS 1.1 has a few deletions, a few additions, and about 6000 more lines of commentary compared with ASIS 1.0. o ASISWG needs a detailed work plan so that we can go forward for the standardization of ASIS to ISO. o The work moving ASIS forward from version 1.0 to version 1.1 has been done mainly by a couple of technical editors with inputs/reviews by most of the ASISWG. o The intent now is that ASIS 2.0 will be specified in Ada9X syntax. o ASIS 1.2 is an interim version that may be specified in Ada83 syntax but which works to Ada9X. o The way to manipulate annotations currently in ASIS is via annotated comments; updating the structure may be something that is in a future version of ASIS. o As a future goal for ASIS 2.0, perhaps there should be the ability to exactly regenerate the original source statements. Currie Colket of the AJPO then gave the AJPO Position on ASIS. ASIS will increase the availability of tools for Ada users. ASIS will increase the quality of tools for Ada users. Both of these imply an increase in the Ada marketplace. ASIS will provide tool vendors with a low-cost migration path to transition from Ada83 to Ada9X -- perhaps (this has yet to be demonstrated). ASIS will provide additional capability for application development. Currie then placed the slide stating the following motion from the September AdaBoard meeting: The Ada Board recognizes the potential benefits to the DoD Ada community of an ASIS standard and therefore it recommends that the AJPO director support by whatever means possible, the development of an ASIS standard and its submission to ISO/WG9 for publication. This motion passed unanimously. Currie also stated that ASIS 1.0 is available on the AJPO machine, i.e., ajpo.sei.cmu.edu, and also on the AdaIC BBS. Jim Bladen of TeleSoft gave a presentation about the TeleSoft ASIS Pilot Program. He also gave a sampling of ASIS Toolkit user success stories, some of which were given in detail later in the evening by the appropriate company representative. Those vendors not present but who were part of the TeleSoft program included VSF Ltd, McDonnell Douglas, and Odyssey Research Associates. TeleSoft is currently implementing a direct link rather than a client-server model of their ASIS implementation. Mickey White of IBM in Boulder presented his slides on the IBM ASIS/Ada Technology, highlighting the System/1 project, which performs an analysis of messages received from satellite data. They needed a universal delogger without having to `with' all the other packages into the program; these packages would have been for all possible types of data that could be logged. IBM contracted with TeleSoft to add a few aditional interfaces to ASIS 1.0 for IBM's needed functionality -- they needed representation information as defined in the Ada LRM, sections 13.7.2 and 3.6.2(10) -- TeleSoft refers to these as ASIS Option 1. Tom Burger of TeleSoft then presented "An Example of ASIS in Use: TeleSoft's Automatic Distributed Configuration Application Tool". This tool automates the construction of distributed applications. Distribution is done on a library package basis. The use of ASIS substantially reduced development time. Someone other than a compiler vendor can do this distribution of packages -- using ASIS. Brian Winner of MITRE presented some of their Experiences with ASIS 1.0. They have a set of semantic tools to perform a detailed analysis of exception handling. Their application is used for the evaluation of exceptions propagation including tasking and generics. They had rewritten/ported this application from a DIANA-based implementation. Brian noted that most of the issues he discussed have been addressed in ASIS 1.1. Alex Blakemore of Genoa Software Systems presented his Experiences with ASIS and the Ada Quality Toolset. The Ada Quality Toolset is a set of tools that can be used to improve the quality of Ada programs. ASIS allows tools like this to work with the Ada library. This toolset had its genesis in SPC's Ada Quality and Style guide. The tools help programmers follow good quality style. Alex then described a few of the tools in the toolset: The Source Code Layout tool, the Source Code Conversion tool, and the Program Structure Reporting tool. Alex gave an overview of these tools and how they fit in the toolset with respect to the Ada library. Output of the tools will include PostScript. Following all the above presentations was a general discussion period. Among the topics discussed were: Memory usage: the DISSOCIATE interface was removed from ASIS. Information concerning the absoluteness of library units. Documentation and introductory/tutorial information. There is a possibility that the next Tri-Ada and perhaps WAdaS'93 may have an ASIS Tutorial. Usage of an ASIS-specific email group. Many thought it was too premature, but perhaps after when ASIS 1.1 comes out, we can address this issue again. After the general Birds-of-a-Feather session, we held a an ASISWG Technical Meeting. We decided to have the next meeting of ASISWG from 9-10 February 1993 at the TeleSoft location in San Diego. We had some discussion about the possibility of splitting up the ASISWG meeting on the two coasts since most of the Technical subgroup are closer, if not located, to the west coast and most of the Administration subgroup are closer, if not located, to the east coast. Information about where the February meeting will be held will be distributed soon. The Draft ASIS 1.1 version will be available for ASISWG members in the early part of December 1992. We will initially call it ASIS 1.0x (`x' is some letter indicating internal working version), showing that it is a derivative of ASIS 1.0. After it has gone through review and after the February meeting, the specification will be called ASIS 1.1 -- at this time, we will tell comp.lang.ada and the rest of the world. Comments are requested via email -- they should have "ASIS 1.0x" someplace (preferably the beginning) in the Subject field. Information will be distributed on how to submit comments. Most of the action items from the meeting held at IDA were closed. The issue of memory usage limitation was discussed. TeleSoft uses a virtual memory management scheme. What are other ways to work with library management wrt memory management? The person who raised this question may want to get back with Gary on an individual basis. The ASIS specification should also be reviewed in light of the issue raised. The ASIS specification is really two layers. The ASIS Application layer (optional for the compiler vendor to implement) is where a lot of implicit stuff is taken care of. All compiler vendors must implement the ASIS Base layer. There is notation in the specification indicating which layer an ASIS interface belongs to -- actually the notation is present only if an interface belongs to the ASIS Application layer -- otherwise, the interface belongs to both and must be implemented. Clyde received an email message from Bob Ekman of IBM which said that the ASIS BoF at STARS'92 will be held on Wednesday evening, 9 December 1992, from 7:00-9:00 PM. [Actually it was held on Tuesday evening, 8 December.] ISO WG9 will meet in Paris 18 June 1993; we need someone there. The suggestion was made that perhaps two people should go: one from the Technical subgroup and one from the Administration subgroup. (Maybe SIGAda might fund one person going?) Alex Blakemore will be giving a presentation about ASIS at ANCOST'93. What about Summer SIGAda in 1993? We don't yet know if there will be a meeting. WAdaS'93 will be held from 28 June through 1 July 1993. Perhaps someone can give a half-day Tutorial. Maybe we can hold a Panel session during the main portion of the meeting. We will definitely want some BOF time one evening, maybe two evenings. At Tri-Ada'93, we will request another evening BOF. Perhaps the WAdaS'93 Tutorial can be used for an ASIS Tutorial session at Tri-Ada'93, again for half a day. Perhaps a couple of people here [or in the ASIS community] could present a paper. We will try to get in the main-line track, i.e., Ada9X. Perhaps we can have our own session for papers and/or a panel and then follow that with a half-day Working Group meeting. But only if ASISWG has some real work to accomplish. -------