CoFI semantics task group

[Don Sannella <dts@dcs.ed.ac.uk>]

Dear friends,

This is a short report on the meeting of the CoFI semantics task group
in Lille, with notes on who is supposed to do what between now and the
IFIP WG1.3 meeting in Tarquinia in early June.

Best regards, Don

----------------------------------------------------------------

1. MEETING DURING TAPSOFT'97 IN LILLE

This meeting took place in installments over a three-day period.
Present at different times were: Hubert Baumeister, Michel Bidoit,
Christine Choppy, Helene Kirchner, Till Mossakowski, Peter Mosses,
Fernando Orejas, Don Sannella, Andrzej Tarlecki, Martin Wirsing.
(Apologies if I have forgotten anybody!)

Most of the meeting was spent going through CoFI semantics note S-1
(= the CASL language summary annotated with our questions and doubts)
and deciding how to discharge all the points therein.  The Language
Design task group had gone through the same document at its meeting a
few days earlier and made decisions about some of the main items.  The
combined result is recorded in an updated version of S-1 -- see
	http://www.brics.dk/Projects/CoFI/Notes/S-1/
for use in the production of the next version (v0.96) of the CASL
language summary.

We also discussed what should happen next, see below.

----------------------------------------------------------------

2. PLAN OF ACTION

>From now until 16 May
------------------------
Version 0.96 of the Language Summary has appeared -- see
	http://www.brics.dk/Projects/CoFI/Documents/LanguageSummary/
This incorporates all of the changes listed in S-1.  Comments on this
should be sent to cofi-language@brics.dk by
	MONDAY 12TH MAY
Peter plans to produce version 0.97 by Friday 16th May at the latest.
This is the final version to be submitted to IFIP WG1.3 for approval.

>From 16 May until 30 May
---------------------------
We will try to produce a draft semantics of v0.97 in a form similar to
that of the draft semantics of v0.95 (CoFI semantics note S-4), where
the text of the language summary is interspersed with the semantics.
The aim is to have this available at the IFIP WG1.3 meeting at
Tarquinia on 2-3 June where the CASL design will be discussed and
(hopefully) approved.

The work will be done by the same people as before:

  Basic specifications: Don (kibitzer Hubert)
  Subsorting: Anna and Maura (kibitzer Till)
  Structured specifications: Till and Hubert (kibitzer Andrzej)
  Architectural specifications: Andrzej (kibitzer Don)
  Libraries: Peter (kibitzer Hans-Joerg)

As soon as v0.97 of the language summary is available, I will send
the relevant part of the latex source to the authors listed above.
The deadline for finishing work is
	23.59 ON THURSDAY 29TH MAY
If possible, kibitzers should be given a chance to review a draft
before this.  I will assemble the parts on Friday 30th May and bring
copies to the IFIP WG1.3 meeting.

After that
----------
Assuming that IFIP WG1.3 approves v0.97 of CASL, it will become v1.0
and so we will then just have to polish the draft semantics of v0.97
and its presentation.  A step in this process will be to carefully
check consistency between the language summary and the semantics
before moving to a document containing just the semantics without the
text of the language summary.