From kh@athens.cs.waikato.ac.nz Mon Nov 8 22:28:31 1993 Received: from grace.waikato.ac.nz ([130.217.64.32]) by dkuug.dk with SMTP id AA03698 (5.65c8/IDA-1.4.4j for ); Sun, 7 Nov 1993 21:26:09 +0100 Message-Id: <199311072026.AA03698@dkuug.dk> Received: from athens.cs.waikato.ac.nz by waikato.ac.nz; Mon, 8 Nov 93 09:27 +1300 Received: by athens.cs.waikato.ac.nz (16.6/16.2) id AA25425; Mon, 8 Nov 93 09:28:31 +1300 Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 09:28:31 +1300 From: Keith Hopper Subject: Modula-2 Binding to POSIX To: sc22wg15@dkuug.dk X-Charset: ASCII X-Char-Esc: 29 Greetings, Jim kindly reminded me that I had been remiss in not providing a formal report to you in October for the meeting which I was unable to make. I informally mentioned to a few people at the SC22 plenary that we were still (WG13 'we' that is!) working out what philosophy to adopt, given the LI delays. I spoke with Bob Mathis re the Ada thinking and offered my personal technical help to the LIS work (as it is a subject dear to my heart -- after my wife of course!) to Paul Rabin. Those members of WG13 in Paris agreed that we would go ahead with a thin binding based upon the LIS (with some reservations) and incorporate the real-time stuff into the first draft. I undertook to produce a first draft binding by the end of October. In the event it was a few days late and has not yet incorporated the real-time stuff as I only got the latest on that last week. I have sent to Paul Rabin a copy of the postscript files of the partial draft -- as LI editor, since there are a considerable number of semantic problems -- and some serious discussion to be had about naming. We have suggested a number of points for mutual discussion when the full draft is completed of our binding. However, since Paul is aware of LI thinking later than the Sept 92 draft which I have, I don't think it suitable to raise these matters formally at this point. The WG13 intention is to agree on most of the form and content of an M-2 binding before our next meeting, which will be in April, and discuss the more contentious points then. I hope that I will be able to provide, therefore, an agreed Working Draft to WG15 'just' before the May meeting. One of the matters which is causing considerable concern, however, is that we have not yet seen a draft of the 'Threads' (-4a) POSIX material. Since the Modula-2 standard includes a Processes library module, the most likely underlying implementation in a POSIX environment (and, we understand from potential implementers, other OS environments too) will involve the use of threads. I am therefore asked to urge WG15 to agree to pass to us (me, since I am drafting!) a usable draft of this material as soon as possible for incorporation in our earliest binding draft. I hope that you will all accept this informal note of the state of play with my apologies. Regards, Keith