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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: Standards controversy? (Updating programming languages to supportXML
 Hi Ken- Writing you and Bill (I don't think he'll be exceedingly offended). Bill's comments are close enough, but not quite the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Bill (Klein) is both knowledgeable and a former member of committee. And generally accurate, but he does write with an edge. I tried to present what exists with as little formal detail as possible, and probably should have provided more detail; Bill is better at detail than I. First, your comment - no the standard itself will not have difficulty moving to become a fast track; it is beyond that. That is simply because 2002 standard was one of the first to try to experiment with the fast track kind of thing and COBOL2002 is now in fact an ISO standard. Once something receives status of ISO standard, it is out of the 'fast track', and on to the standard review and update track. The TRs and the folding of the TRs are part of that process. An actual fast track currently in progress would be a language like C#, which came in via ECMA as an established ECMA standard and had some years (I can check, but I think it was 2 years) to run through the Fast Track process. Now Bill's things: There are 3 items on the agenda relating to TRs for the upcoming (Oct) ISO work group meeting for COBOL. One of those is for XML TR. So yes, Bill is correct in his detail that there is no direction to include it; the reason it is on the agenda is that investigating XML handling and how to do it was requested at a prior meeting. And there is also no direction to exclude it. The meeting has not yet happened. At the meeting, the various countries will hash things out. That's the way these things work in this arena. Unanimous is desired, but not required. It is ironic that IBM is singled out as treating XML in their compiler somewhat differently than how the TR is fleshing out -- the IBM folks are a strong part of the effort forming the TR. Perhaps one learns what works and what doesn't work by actually trying something. As far a guarantees - again Bill is correct, no guarantees. I'm not sure any work would get done anywhere if everyone waited for guaranteed success. We do our best, but no guarantees. Finally, this one probably does have some importance, the standard is just like any other language standard - a set of rules for syntax and semantics. Implementers of a standard may not implement everything, or they may add to their implementation items not in the standard. Try the C++ compilers which come with Sun, Windows, IBM, and perhaps HP boxes. Close, but not identical; particularly around the STL. Or try the JVM across different operating systems. The COBOL2002 standard has some items, for instance RESUME, which I am pretty sure have not been implemented by anyone. Maybe it is a good item, maybe a mistake. The vendors themselves will respond to the market. The only thing for certain is if that item is implemented by a vendor, it will have the rules for implementation defined. Okay, enough. Basically, Bill is correct, but not exactly telling the entire story. And the story will unfold more in October. Thanks, Barry Barry Tauber ( btauber@i... ) 01(847) 267-8012 International Representative INCITS-J4 (COBOL) Certified MCP (Microsoft), Java (Sun) -----Original Message----- From: Ken North [mailto:kennorth@s...] Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2005 4:41 PM To: xml-dev@l... Subject: Standards controversy? (Updating programming languages to support XML) It appears adding XML support to the COBOL standard may be more controversial that it was for the SQL 2003 standard. Barry Tauber recently wrote "XML and the New COBOL" http://www.webservicessummit.com/Trends/COBOL_XML.htm The article has raised questions: 1. Whether the COBOL standard will move through INCITS and ANSI to become an ISO Fast Track candidate. 2. Whether it will win ISO approval. According to William M. Klein, Germany has questioned whether XML support belongs in the COBOL standard. 
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