Tentative approval of CASL; concrete syntax; meetings in September

[pdmosses@brics.dk]

Some news, following the meetings last week in Tarquinia:

Tentative approval of CASL
__________________________

IFIP WG 1.3 has TENTATIVELY APPROVED the proposed design for CASL!

The approval is subject to reconsideration (by the Language Design
task group) of some aspects of the proposed design, as detailed in a
formal referees' report.  The referees' report itself is to be made
available (and announced on the cofi-language mailing list) later this
week.  Some of us have already looked at a draft of the report, and
discussed the issues that were raised in it; we believe that they can
all be resolved satisfactorily - without an excessive amount of
further work on the CASL design...

The aim is for the Language Design task group to formulate an initial
response to the referees' report straight away, before the end of
June; a draft will be made available next week.  It may be useful to
produce also a version 0.98 of the CASL Summary, highlighting the
(relatively few) parts of the proposed language design that are now
being reconsidered.

It is hoped that the Language Design task group can conclude the
preparation of the final CASL design by the end of August, and release
version 1.0 of the CASL Summary by mid-September, so as to provide a
stable basis for the future work of all the task groups before their
next meetings (see the new meeting plans below).  However, the
vacation period is almost upon us, and it may be difficult to finish
discussions and reach decisions concerning the final CASL design
before September.


Concrete Syntax
_______________

The Language Design task group is now working towards a COMPROMISE
between the "Bremen" and "Paris" proposals for concrete syntax.  A
list of particular issues concerning concrete syntax will be sent for
comment to cofi-language on Monday 16 June, with the aim of converging
on a single proposal by mid-September.  Please find the time to take a
look at it and react - a satisfactory concrete syntax is crucial for
the success of CASL!


Meetings in September
_____________________

It has been decided to hold several TASK GROUP MEETINGS in September,
following FME'97 (Graz) and ASF+SDF'97 (Amsterdam):


  Date                Task Group          Location     Organizer

  Sat 20 September    Methodology         Graz         Michel Bidoit

  Sun 21 September    Reactive Systems    Graz         Egidio Astesiano

  Sat 27 September    Tools &             Amsterdam    Hélène Kirchner &
                      Language Design                  Bernd Krieg-Brückner

  Sun 28 September    Methodology         Amsterdam    Michel Bidoit


Participants of the Task Group on Methodology are expected to attend
only one part of their distributed meeting; Michel will attend both.
Thanks to Michel for solving a difficult scheduling problem in this
way!

The Language Design part of the meeting in Amsterdam is to focus on
tools-related issues: concrete (and abstract) syntax, sub-languages of
CASL for use with particular existing tools, etc.  It should thus be
of interest also to the participants of the Tools task group.  A
detailed agenda for the joint meeting will be announced by the
beginning of September.


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\  /  | Peter D Mosses         <pdmosses@brics.dk> |
CoFI  | Common Framework Initiative  - Coordinator |
/  \  | WWW URL: http://www.brics.dk/Projects/CoFI |
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