London was the place to be this past summer, at least if you're a fan of the programming language standards developed by ISO committee JTC1/SC22. The British Standards Institute (BSI) played host to WG14 and the American C standards committee J11 in June. They followed with a two-day meeting of the ad hoc Java Study Group at the end of that month. Then in July they hosted WG21 and the American C++ standards committee J16.
A handful of old warhorses actually attended all three meetings. Lucky for me, I'm no longer among that number. Tana and I went just to the C++ meeting, then up to Oxford for the weekend following. The UK Association of C and C++ Users cleverly scheduled a two-day conference on the heels of the C++ meeting so they could nab speakers who were already in country. Bjarne Stroustrup was, of course, the star of the show, but Dan Saks and I also got a respectful hearing from a very attentive audience.
For many years, BSI hosted meetings at their digs in Green Street, smack in the middle of Mayfair and convenient to the West End theatres. Then they went and bought a building out in Chiswick, sitting atop the Gunnersbury tube station. I guess I can't blame them they needed the space but I sure prefer a five-minute walk to Green Street from my favorite hotel to a 40-minute train ride from the same venue.
I know I'm supposed to be there for the meetings, but you have to understand how I feel about legitimate theatre. To me, the highpoint of the trip was standing for three and a half hours as a groundling in the newly recreated Globe Theatre watching an excellent production of Henry V. It's still powerful and moving four centuries after opening night. And that was just one of four plays we saw. Good trip.
Oh yes, about those standards meetings.
The C committees are as conservative as ever. They seem to be well on track to having a revised C Standard approved before the end of 1999, so the C9X monicker is not yet a joke. They are adding features mostly of interest to numerical programmers, and otherwise changing very little. I expect they'll generate little opposition, but little interest or excitement as well.
Sun Microsystems essayed a procedure that would have led fairly quickly to ISO endorsement of their Java language specification, with little or no opportunity for tweaking in committee. The national bodies voting within SC22 have apparently registered considerable opposition to this approach. The Java Study Group wants to keep studying for another year. Meanwhile, the industry chugs on, unassisted (or unencumbered) by a Java SC22 working group.
Finally, the C++ committees mostly did what they promised. They devoted the week to processing national body comments from the second Committee Draft ballot. They made the usual passel of changes, but offered some hope that they're mostly done fiddling with C++. The plan is still to vote out the final Draft International Standard at the November meeting in Morristown, New Jersey.
Good trip.
P.J. Plauger
pjp@plauger.com
http://www.tiac.net/users/pjp
http://www.dinkumware.com