Minutes from ASISWG/ASISRG Meeting at DDC-I, Inc. Phoenix AZ (USA) 25-26 March 1997 The Ada Semantic Interface Specification Working Group (ASISWG) and the Ada Semantic Interface Specification Rapporteur Group (ASISRG) met all day Tuesday and Wednesday (25-26 March 1997) at the offices of DDC-I, Inc. in Phoenix, Arizona (USA). The following people attended: Steve Blake, Aonix Currie Colket, SPAWAR Dan Cooper, Boeing Herm Fischer, Mark V Systems Clyde Roby, IDA Sergey Rybin, Moscow State University Bill Thomas, MITRE Joyce Tokar, DDC-I Kevin Tucker, DDC-I The primary goal of this meeting was to complete the review of the comments against the ASIS Working Draft which was submitted to ISO/IEC SC22 WG9 at their meeting on 7 December 1997 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA). WG9 commenced their 60-day ballot process on 1 March on the ASIS Working Draft, Version 2.0.k, dated 7 December 1996. When WG9 approves the ASIS Working Draft, it will become a Committee Draft (CD); they will then forward it to SC22 for approval. The process included the addressing of open Issues and Comments based upon comments received by ASISWG/ASISRG during the 60-day ballot process. In his closing remarks, Currie said that OCSystems is closely watching what ASISWG/ASISRG is doing; they have an Ada83 ASIS implementation. Aonix is currently doing ASIS 95 and have made several requests to Intermetrics (who is doing their front-end). Minutes and Action Items from December Meeting The minutes of the December 1996 meeting were accepted and approved by a formal motion and vote. The Action Items from the December meeting were reviewed (these are available on the AJPO's SW-Eng host). ISO Standardization of ASIS Currie reviewed the ISO Standardization process. SC22 had approved the ASIS New Work Item on 2 February 1996 with 17 nations voting to approve (one nation abstained and 5 nations did not submit their votes on time). To become a formal ISO project, approval at the JTC1 level is required. The JTC1 ballot closed on 28 May 1996, About a week later, the results were announced: the ASIS New Work Item was approved and the Project Number #22-15291 was assigned. This is an important milestone as the ASIS project is now formally recognized by ISO, facilitating the standardization of ASIS. The first real step towards getting an international standard is to submit a Working Draft to WG9. ASIS version 2.0.K was submitted to the WG9 meeting on 7 December 1996 for a 60-day electronic mail ballot. Once WG9 approves the Working Draft, it is submitted to SC22 as a Committee Draft (CD). There would then be four international ballots: 1. SC22 ballot 2. JTC1 ballot (a successful ballot will result in ASIS as a Draft International Standard -- DIS) 3. SC22 ballot 4. JTC1 ballot (a successful ballot will result in ASIS as an International Standard) The ISO Working Draft document has been under review. The AJPO requested that CACI and EDS review the document. It would be useful to have an index; perhaps an index of queries and ASIS types would be valuable. If this is done, it should be done after the CD is submitted. Expected ASIS Schedule for ISO Standardization As can be seen by the following schedule, we are still looking for an ISO approved standard ASIS in the 1998 time frame. Dec 93 AJPO recommends ASIS V1.1.0 (ASIS 83) be used as interface to Ada 83 Program Library Mar 94 Design Goals for ASIS 95 identified Jun 94 ASISWG finalizes ASIS 83 as V1.1.1 with test suite Jun 94 Evaluate design approaches for ASIS 95 Nov 94 Finalize approach for ASIS 95 Nov 94 Categorize outstanding ASIS 83 deferred issues Nov 94 Proposed KINDS for ASIS 95 Feb 95 ASIS Home Page on WWW established http://www.acm.org/sigada/WG/asiswg Mar 95 Finalize ASIS 95 Kinds Mar 95 Provide ASIS 95 in Skeleton format Mar 95 Organize ASIS 83 Deferred Issues and Current Issues Apr 95 ASISRG created unanimously by ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 WG9 Jun 95 Approved initial ASIS 95 Element_Kind Type Hierarchy Jun 95 Approved changes to ASIS 83 to produce ASIS 95 draft standard Jun 95 Defined ASIS terminology Jun 95 Approved new library/environment model Oct 95 Prototype demonstration of ASIS for GNAT Nov 95 Draft ASIS 95 distributed for public comments Feb 96 SC22 approved ASIS New Work Item (NWI) Mar 96 ASISWG/ASISRG generated ASIS 95 ISO Working Draft (WD) May 96 JTC1 approved ASIS NWI (ASIS assigned Project #22-15291) Jun 96 ASIS-for-GNAT prototype available for GNAT Ada 95 Compiler Jun 96 ASIS draft Working Draft submitted to WG9 for comments Dec 96 First complete ASIS 95 implementation demonstrated by DDC-I at Tri-Ada'96 Dec 96 ASIS Working Draft submitted to WG9 for 60-day ballot Mar 97 WG9 ballot on ASIS closes (1 March) Mar 97 ASISWG/ASISRG resolves WG9 comments (23-24 March) Aug 97 Possible; SC22 ballot on ASIS CD Jan 98 Possible; JTC1 ballot on ASIS CD (ASIS registerable as DIS) Aug 98 Possible; SC22 ballot on ASIS DIS Nov 98 Possible; JTC1 ballot on ASIS DIS Dec 98 Possible; ASIS International Standard printed Review Progress Towards Goals To turn the ASIS document into a Committee Draft (CD), we must properly dispose of the comments submitted against the Working Draft of ASIS and generate a letter to WG9 indicating how we did so. Several email messages with comments came to ASIS-Comment. These were separated into ASIS Issues and Editorial Comments. Anything that wasn't an (easy) editorial comment was turned into an ASIS Issue -- these were mainly technical comments which required more discussion. All ASIS editorial comments from 001 through 059 have been incorporated in ASIS version 2.0.L. The document completed as a result of discussions at this meeting will be the final document. After this, there can be no "gratuitous" changes; comments must all respond to a (formal) comment. Once the CD moves up to SC22, it must be stable. During the voting in SC22, additional comments can be generated. Then JTC1 will vote on the document; after passing JTC1, it can be registered as a Draft International Standard (DIS). After another turn through SC22 and JTC1, it can become an International Standard. If we find any further technical changes, we must forward our comments onto our national SC22 representatives via WG9 (i.e., Jim Moore). If ASIS is approved, then ASISRG (the Rapporteur Group) goes away, presumably after June 1997. After that, any technical changes are made by the document's technical editors (currently Steve Blake and Clyde Roby). It was noted that we may have to change the ASISWG charter after standardization is complete. The best comments we received came in from ASIS implementors. Several excellent comments also came in from Ron Price, Doug Smith, Jesper Jorgensen, John Dawes, Michael Pickett, ... Comments should be sent to ASIS-Comment@SW-Eng.Falls-Church.Va.US. Additional comments will still be received and logged for more formal purposes. Discussions are encouraged to continue among the ASIS community for answers, tips, etc. to help each other. Editorial Comments discussed at this ASISWG/ASISRG meeting We first discussed the Editorial Comments which had a disposition of Open (O), Rejected (X), or Accept with Modification (M). For version 2.0.L, we did not make any changes to the examples in Annex B. Only changes indicated by Editorial Comments 001 through 059 were incorported into ASIS 2.0.L. C004 and C005 These two Editorial Comments became status M. "The important common abstractions are Context, Compilation_Unit, Element, and Ids." Include a sentence about Id in that paragraph, too. Delete sentences about the others we are removing. "In addition, there are a number of types which define elements and units in 3.11." C010 -- Okay. C015 Change status to A. Change Initial_Value to Initialization_Expression. C017 -- Okay. C029 -- Okay. C038 -- Change status to M. C039 Change status to X. Keep for clarification. C040 Change status to M. Additional words in section 1.3 were added. Formal Issues discussed at this ASISWG/ASISRG meeting Issues #023 through #068 were discussed at this meeting. The final resolution of these Issues is included with appropriate rationale in the Issues Summary and detailed discussions about each issue, available on the ASISWG web page. Decision After all the comments and issues were discussed, Steve Blake made a motion, seconded by Clyde Roby, and unanimously passed: We concur on the disposition of comments reviewed at this meeting with resolutions as recorded for the Comments and Issues. ASIS Examples (Annex B of the ASIS document) B.2 and B.3 need to be fixed to compile and run. We also need sample output from all three examples. B.1 is simple, but it works. B.2 is an excellent example -- Bill Thomas has updated the source. B.3 should be replaced with something else (maybe Dan Ehrenfried's example?). Maybe we should have other examples (uses of identifiers, cross-reference, unused variables, uninitialized variables, etc.). Coordination with Other Groups SIGAda We received a congratulatory message from Hal Hart, chair of SIGAda, on our progress to date. HRG (Annex H Rapporteur Group of WG9) Steve Michell and Currie have an action item about using ASIS in safety and security areas of software development. HRG will not try to standardize on pragma annotate at this time. Their main thrust is to develop guidelines for implementors of safety critical software. The basis of this is ORA's study, available at www.ora.on.ca/ada95.html. ASIS fits in nicely with what HRG is doing. OOWG (Object Oriented Working Group of SIGAda) Dave Bookman, OOWG's chair attended the December meeting of ASISWG. ASIS was submitted to OOWG's membership but we did not receive any responses. Dave, however, had some inputs. Currie always sends highlights of our meetings to both the Ada Bindings Working Group (ABWG) and OOWG. Future Meetings There will probably be no more meetings of ASISWG/ASISRG before Tri-Ada'97 in St. Louis in November. Currie will present a paper at the Software Technology Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah (USA) in the Ada Track -- April 1997. WG9 meets in June 1997 coincident with Ada-Europe'97 (3-6 June). Currie will give a status briefing at that time. We must get our Comment Disposition document to Jim Moore, chair of WG9, by 1 May. If the Disposition of Comments is accepted, then ASISRG (the Rapporteur Group) may be disbanded at that time. However, if additional issues come up, ASISRG can be re-formed. It would be good to distribute the updatedd ASIS document at this conference. Currie will give a 15-minute status update at Ada-Europe'97. We currently have a 1-1/2 hour slot at WAdaS'97. Currie would like us to focus on "roll your own tools with ASIS" (due to Sweden's ABSTAIN vote and their reason). We must come up with something in the next couple of weeks so that it can be on the WAdaS'97 advance program. This could simply be an advertisement, i.e., marketing the panel we will have, in 4-6 bullets. This is a promotion opportunity to get "converts". Herm indicated that he might be interested to speak at this time. An ASISWG meeting at Tri-Ada'97 in November could have a different focus. ASIS could be discussed in terms of a Tools Faire, a tutorial, etc. We may not need to address the specification at that time since it would be out of our hands (and in ISO's). We can discuss more about Tri-Ada'97 after the June WG9 meeting. We could have a BoF but these usually don't have good attendance. Focus at Tri-Ada should be on usage rather than the technical details of ASIS. Four vendors (Aonix, DDC-I, GNAT, and Rational) could give a short talk and/or demonstration. An ASIS-for-GNAT tutorial by Sergey (proposed) is a full-day tutorial with on-line hands-on exercises. Perhaps the name could be "On-line (or Hands-on) ASIS Tools Workshop". Do we want to have a panel similar to what we might have at WAdaS'97? We could discuss the porting of tools from one ASIS implementation to another. Perhaps even demonstrate the ease of porting the examples in Annex B from one implementation to another. We must transition to publicity and/or user activity after Tri-Ada'97. If DoD is moving to something else, we might want to start thinking about changing. We might want to look at chartering activities where the political winds blow. ASIS in Ada Letters and Other Periodicals Dan Cooper has generated an article for Ada Letters titled "ASIS-Based Code Analysis Automation". Should we generate an article discussing issues related to the development of tools (as discussed earlier in these minutes)? Bill Thomas's quality issues paper from Tri-Ada'95 has been updated. All were encouraged to write ASIS related articles for Ada Letters and other publications. Next Meeting The next meeting of ASISWG (and maybe ASISRG) will probably be held at Tri-Ada'97 in St. Louis (USA). More details will be distributed via email probably in late summer.