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ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22 Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces Plenary Highlights

On 13th September, the JTC 1/SC 22 Plenary opened its fully virtual sessions, with a welcome and greetings by the SC 22 Chair, David Keaton. This is the 3rd year of SC 22 meeting virtually only. The plenary was attended by 34 participants from 12 different countries.

The plenary agenda contained two main topics under consideration: Further progression and updates to the SC 22 standards projects and liaison activities and collaboration with the SC 22 community.

The highlights and outcomes of the plenary includes further progression of a few projects and discussion on liaison areas.

    • SC 22 agreed to start the revision of ISO/IEC 1989 Information technology — Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces — Programming language COBOL once the current version is published. 
       
    • SC 22 also agreed to start a preliminary work item (PWI) for ISO/IEC 8652 Information technology — Programming languages — Ada to start discussing what enhancement are needed for the next revision.

    • ISO/IEC 24772-1 Programming languages – Avoiding vulnerabilities in programming languages – Part 1: Language independent catalogue of vulnerabilities was approved to progress to the draft international standards (DIS) stage for further processing as a standard.

    • SC 22 discussed its collaboration with the SC 22 internal and external liaisons.

SC 22 closed the plenary on 14th September with its appreciation to all the attendees and participants in SC 22. SC 22 gave a special appreciation to Mr. Wataru Takagi for his leadership as the Convenor of SC 22/WG 4 - COBOL.

The next plenary is planned to take place on 12-13 September 2023 as a virtual meeting.  

Interested in getting involved in the SC 22 standardization activities? The best way to participate is to join the INCITS Programming Languages Technical Committee, the U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 or one of the specialized programming language technical committees (Fortran, C, and C++). Find out more information on membership in INCITS Programming Languages Technical Committee or one of the INCITS specialized technical committees.

The INCITS/Programming Languages Technical Committee is concerned with any ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22 issue which does not fall within the domain of a specialized INCITS programming language group.

 This activity includes the following representative examples:

- consideration of new work item proposals (NPs)
- cross-language issues
- U.S. conveners
- organizational matters

The INCITS/Fortran Technical Committee is responsible for the development and interpretation of the United States and International standards for Programming Language Fortran. In addition to working on the next revision of the Fortran standard, INCITS/Fortran works on interpretations of the current standard and develops the list of new features for the next revision. This technical committee is the U.S. TAG to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 5 and provides recommendations on U.S. positions to the JTC 1 TAG.

The INCITS/C Technical Committee is responsible for the technical development of the standard for the C programming language. The goal, which INCITS/C believes had been successfully achieved, is to make it possible for C programs to be portable among operating systems and across a wide variety of computers. Extensive work has been done to make this standard acceptable in both the National and International arenas.

A high level of compatibility with the ISO C++ standard and suitability for the international community are two associated goals established by INCITS/C that will help to extend the useful life of this standard and increase the audience of its users. INCITS/C is the U.S. TAG to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 14.

The INCITS/C++ Technical Committee is responsible for the technical development of the standard for the C++ programming language. The goal of this project is to make it possible for C++ programs to be highly portable among different operating systems and across a wide variety of computers. High level of compatibility with the ISO C standard and suitability for the international community are two associated goals established by INCITS/C++ that will help to extend the useful life of this standard and increase the audience of its users. INCITS/C++ is the U.S. TAG to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 21.