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Common Framework Initiative - Tentative Design Proposal
[This cofi-list is restricted to announcements concerning CoFI
meetings and overall coordination. Please direct ALL follow-ups
concerning language design issues to cofi-language@brics.dk. -PDM]
> The Language Design task group needs a few more days. The proposal
> will now (definitely!) become available on Thursday 20 June. It will
> be announced to all the CoFI mailing lists and on the CoFI WWW pages.
At last!
Here is how to find the relevant page, together with a plain-text copy
of it:
URL: http://www.brics.dk/Projects/CoFI/TentativeDesignProposal.html
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TENTATIVE DESIGN PROPOSAL
The next CoFI Language Design Task Group meeting will be held in Munich,
5-7 July 1996. (The meeting is intended only for ACTIVE participants of the
Language Design task group, and familiarity with ALL available study notes,
check-lists, etc., will be presumed.)
In preparation for the working meeting in Munich, several new study notes
have been written, and a tentative design proposal has been prepared (see
below). The discussions in Munich will be based upon these documents.
Several significant issues (such as the choice between strong and
existential equality, and the treatment of parametrization) have not yet
been resolved. Perhaps you can help by giving your opinion?
COMMENTS ON ALL ASPECTS OF THE DESIGN PROPOSAL ARE MOST WELCOME!
- those received by noon on Friday 5 July will be taken into account at the
meeting. The address for sending comments is
URL: mailto:cofi-language@brics.dk.
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end
See the CoFI Home Page, under "Mailing Lists", for further details. The
archives of the cofi-language list, containing all the previously-sent
comments on the Tentative Design Proposal, can be found there too.
AVAILABLE WORKING DOCUMENTS
The primary documents are for the Tentative Design Proposal are:
DD:
Tentative Design Description Proposal
URL: http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~agbkb/CoFI/
BlackCoFI/BlackCoFI.0.7.1/DD.html
AS:
Tentative Abstract Syntax Proposal
URL: http://www.brics.dk/Projects/CoFI/
DesignProposals/AbstractSyntax.html
There is deliberately nothing about concrete syntax yet (examples are given
in a hopefully suggestive but completely ad hoc style).
The following notes expand on various issues raised by the above Tentative
Design Description Proposal:
Basic:
A note about basic concepts and constructs
URL: ftp://ftp.brics.dk/pub/BRICS/Projects/CoFI/DesignProposals/EA/
Basic.(tex,dvi,ps)
Struct:
A note about structuring concepts
URL: ftp://ftp.brics.dk/pub/BRICS/Projects/CoFI/DesignProposals/MB/
Struct.(tex,dvi,ps)
The following study notes have been completed or revised since the previous
meeting of the Language Design Task Group (Oxford, March 1996):
* Behavioural Encapsulation (15 March 1996) [MB+DTS+AT-1] tex, dvi, ps.Z
* Morphisms (version 1.0, 13 May 1996) [DB-1] ps.Z
* The CoFI Common Language: A note about practical aspects (19 June 1996)
[OO+OJD-1] tex, dvi, ps
* On Abstract Syntax (version 0.2, 20 June 1996)[PDM-1] tex, dvi, ps.Z
Finally, all the previously-prepared study notes are still available:
StudyNotes
Language Design Study Notes
FTP: for each [LABEL] above (and for `index' and `toc') the files LABEL.tex,
LABEL.dvi and LABEL.ps.Z are available for FTP in the CoFI FTP archives,
URL: ftp://ftp.brics.dk/pub/BRICS/Projects/CoFI/StudyNotes/Lang/ . N.B. The
Postscript files *.ps.Z are now much smaller than they used to be! The
easiest may be to get just the DVI files, and use a driver such as dvips to
print them. Note that these need to be transferred in BINARY mode. Hint: use
the FTP command mget *.EXT to get all the files with extension EXT at once.
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE
The meeting in Munich is to resolve the remaining technical questions
concerning the tentative design proposal, and to clarify the rationale for
the various design choices. This should result in the adoption (by the
Language Design task group) of a Tentative Common Language Description by
mid-July, 1996 - although because of vacation time, it may well be late
August before a detailed report on it becomes available.
The plan is then that the Semantics, Tools, Methodology, and Reactive
Systems task groups should assess the tentative language design from their
various perspectives, at the same time starting to prepare the relevant
associated documents that should eventually accompany the CoFI Common
Language Reference Manual. The Language Design Task Group should meanwhile
turn its attention to the design of a concrete syntax for the Common
Language (the tentative language design focusses on its abstract syntax) in
collaboration with the Tools Task Group, and to preparing examples of
specifications.
Provided that the changes to the tentative language design suggested by the
various task groups are not too dramatic, the plan is to converge on a
proposal for a CoFI Common Language Definition by the end of 1996. This
proposal should then be open to public debate for some months, before a CoFI
Common Language Definition based on it is submitted to IFIP WG 14.3 for
approval, probably in Spring 1997.
Note, however, that the Common Framework Initiative is a voluntary, unfunded
effort, and the plans outlined above may change, in response to fluctuations
in the available human resources.
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CoFI: The Common Framework Initiative, June 20, 1996
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\ / Peter D Mosses <pdmosses@brics.dk>
CoFI Common Framework Initiative - Coordinator
/ \ WWW URL: http://www.brics.dk/Projects/CoFI
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Note the acronym and URL - CoFI was formerly CFI