Re: ISO/IEC DIS 8652 and ISO/IEC DIS 14519-1

[emery@goldfinger.mitre.org (David Emery)]

Erik raises some interesting questions.  As a member of the POSIX/Ada
committee (and also WG9), let me answer them.  First, some history:

	1.  Because of politics relating to 'language independence',
ISO would NOT accept the submission of the POSIX/Ada binding (IEEE
Project P1003.5) or POSIX/Fortran binding (IEEE Project P1003.9) under
the same terms as the C binding/POSIX interface definition (IEEE
Project P1003.1).  
	2.  Therefore, the C binding became ISO 9945.1:1989
(relatively) concurrent with its approval by IEEE as IEEE Std
1003.1-1990.  
	3.  POSIX/Ada became IEEE Std 1003.5-1992 (and
FORTRAN IEEE Std 1003.9-1992) independent of any ISO actoin.
	4.  After approval of IEEE Std 1003.5-1992 (in 1992 :-), we
then proposed ISO JTC1 fast-track of the IEEE POSIX/Ada standard.
After some coordination and a consultative letter ballot by ISO/IEC
JTC1/SC22 which concurred (with comments), we then forwarded the
document to the JTC1 secretariat for fast-track standardization.  At
the same time, the IEEE started work on a amendment project for
POSIX/Ada, both to fix some known defects and also to handle any
comments from the ISO ballot.
	5.  Somewhere in ISO, this document got lost.  We got it back
on track this year.  (Thus, we lost a full year in the balloting
cycle.)

Now, the real technical question is: Does POSIX/Ada have value for
Ada9X?  The answer (IMHO) is "Yes".  The POSIX/Ada standard is upwards
compatable with Ada9X.  The only 9X issue is the use of interrupt
entries for signal handlers, a feature declared obsolete in Ada9X.
Other than that, the Ada83 binding is completely consistent with
Ada9x.  

Furthermore, there has been a lot of interest in this standard, and I
think it's important that we get the I.S. out ASAP.

Finally, we are currently working on the POSIX/Ada Real-Time binding.
The way POSIX standards work, this is a revision to the existing
POSIX/Ada binding.  We're explicitly considering Ada9X in this work.  

There are some places in the current POSIX/Ada (IEEE Std 1003.5-1992)
standard that I would like to 'change' to take advantage of Ada9X
features.  It's possible that we'll propose a revision of the entire
POSIX/Ada document to take better advantage of Ada9X in the future,
but for now, the POSIX/Ada binding is very usable from Ada9X.

In short, vote "yes".

			Dave Emery
			(P1003.5 Technical Editor and
			 Interpretations Vice-Chair)
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