The CoFI Language Design Task Group was formed at the founding meeting of the Common Framework Initiative, in Oslo, September 1995. The working meetings held in Paris (November 1995), Munich (January 1996), Oxford (March 1996), Paris (May 1996), Munich (July 1996), Edinburgh (November 1996), and Paris (January and April 1997) helped to guide the subsequent design of CASL. The following persons have particpated in some or all of these meetings: Egidio Astesiano, Hubert Baumeister, Jan Bergstra, Gilles Bernot, Didier Bert, Mohammed Bettaz, Michel Bidoit, Mark van den Brand, Maria Victoria Cengarle, Maura Cerioli, Christine Choppy, Ole-Johan Dahl, Hans-Dieter Ehrich, Hartmut Ehrig, Jose Fiadeiro, Marie-Claude Gaudel, Chris George, Joseph Goguen, Radu Grosu, Magne Haveraaen, Anne Haxthausen, Jim Horning, Hélène Kirchner, Hans-Jörg Kreowski, Bernd Krieg-Brückner, Pierre Lescanne, Tom Maibaum, Grant Malcolm, Karl Meinke, Till Mossakowski, Peter D. Mosses, Peter Padawitz, Fernando Orejas, Olaf Owe, Gianna Reggio, Horst Reichel, Don Sannella, Giuseppe Scollo, Amilcar Sernadas, Andrzej Tarlecki, Eelco Visser, Eric Wagner, Michal Walicki, and Martin Wirsing. (Apologies to anyone who has been inadvertently omitted.)
The acronym CASL for the CoFI Algebraic Specification Language was originally proposed by Christine Choppy.
This document has been developed by Peter D. Mosses, originally on the basis of the design proposals and notes made available before the Munich meeting and the agreements reached during the meeting. Its preparation has been greatly assisted by the timely production of the minutes of meetings by Christine Choppy.
Subsequent versions of this document have attempted to incorporate the improvements suggested in various comments and notes from the following persons: Egidio Astesiano, Hubert Baumeister, Jan Bergstra, Gilles Bernot, Didier Bert, Michel Bidoit, Pietro Cenciarelli, Maria Victoria Cengarle, Maura Cerioli, Christine Choppy, Ole-Johan Dahl, Marie-Claude Gaudel, Chris George, Joseph Goguen, Radu Grosu, Anne Haxthausen, Jim Horning, Hélène Kirchner, Hans-Jörg Kreowski, Bernd Krieg-Brückner, Till Mossakowski, Peter D. Mosses, Olaf Owe, Gianna Reggio, Erik Saaman, Don Sannella, Andrzej Tarlecki, Eelco Visser, Michal Walicki, Martin Wirsing, and Uwe Wolter. (Again, apologies to anyone who has been inadvertently omitted.)
The comments have been sent to the mailing list subscribers, and are accessible in the mailing list archives for 1996 and 1997. The notes are also accessible.
Version 0.95 of this document was the summary of the complete CASL Tentative Design [Ini97], available since December 1996.
Moreover, CoFI Note S-1 [Gro97a] extended the cited Tentative Design Language Summary with annotations concerning some questions and doubts raised by the Semantics task group, in connection with their development of a formal semantics for CASL, see CoFI Note S-4 [Gro97b]; CoFI Note S-1 has since been updated with an indication of how the issues were expected to be resolved.