Net Meeting 58

Review of Action List

The action item list is maintained as a tracker on SourceForge.

41/1 : PGL: No progress. Carried forward

52/1 : JC: Some progress, not finished. See report below.

52/2 : PGL: Progress but still not closed. Carried forward

57/1 : Closed: the meeting agreed that the LB is enlarged to seven members.

57/2 Closed: send note to LB on status of VDM libraries. The view (NB/NP) was that libraries were a tool matter, rather than an LB/LRM matter.

57/3 : Closed: all authors have updated the publications list and added the target conference or journal.

VDMTools

The newest version is following:

• The VDM++ Toolbox v9.0.2b - Thu 08-Dec-2011 08:26:34 +0900.

I’ve uploaded in Dropbox share area, and mail all of you where it is. But, I’ll delete the share area on 31th Dec. 2011.

Modified properties are followings:

1. Change GC timing.
2. Append /* */ type comment in VDM-SL.
3. Fixed bugs in narrow expression.

Overture

VDMJ: Only two small changes since the last meeting. The reporting of warnings for non-deterministic statements that include sub-statements that may return a value was improved (some statements may not be reached, but we don’t know which). And the new “classname” function was added to the internal library so that it can be called via VDMUtils.

IDE: Only small changes has been made to the IDE, mostly improvements inside the tool which is not visible to the user.

Overture build:

• We are currently working on some improvements for the maven build needed for the branch for the new AST. The change will mostly be in the way the IDE uses core artifacts (VDMJ). This should also solve some of the problems new users might have with eclipse or at lease reduce the complexity. The change will also allow us to use Maven 3 which should have some improvements especially on the networking side.

New AST

• AST generator is ready without the extension feature. A version had been made that allowed extensions but it was discovered that it was not good enough do to the restriction on reuse of utility (e.g. not possible to use utility functions made for the type check when implementing the interpreter).
• Parser for VDM-SL, VDM-PP and VDM-RT is completed.
• Type checker for VDM-SL, VDM-PP and VDM-RT is completed.
• Proof Obligation gernerator for VDM-SL, VDM-PP and VDM-RT is mostly completed.
• We hope to start implementing the new AST into the IDE this Monday (19 dec 2011).
• The improved extension feature for the AST generator is ongoing but not completed. The idea is to subclass the base tree in the extended tree making all utility functions and visitors possible to use with the extended tree.

Release 2.0.0RC1 is expected mid January 2012, which includes these features.

Language Board

Minutes of the last meeting are available here: Minutes_of_the_LB_NM%2C_20th_November_2011

There has been very little activity or progress since the last meeting.

The meeting has agreed to extend the board to seven members. Marcel Verhoef volunteered to join, one position still open. The current board members have opted for re-election for another one year term. The meeting has kindly accepted that offer and reinstated the LB for the year 2012.

Release Management

Overture 1.1.1 has now been officially released.

An initial draft of the 2012 release plan is made. You can see my initial draft on the SourceForge SVN Browser, though I am still gathering features for the broad list. Eventually the release process will become its own document, and the feature & actions list will be handled by something with better dependency/target tracking than LaTeX (I will look in depth at the current bug system, though I don’t think it will suffice, and also at Trac; if necessary I will broaden my search).

Joey is proposing to use TRAC as the tool to make the release management easier to administer.

Overture release 2.0.0-RC1 is expected mid January 2012, which includes the overhauled AST.

Strategic Research Agenda

The research agenda is reviewed at every second meeting and was discussed last time. Since then there have only been comments from Nick Battle, who asked whether methods and applications could be regarded as part of the research agenda. We await any further comments for discussion at the next NM. Everyone is encouraged to discuss and make modifications to the Research agenda pages.

We will have an interactive discussion session on the SRA at NM 59.

Publication plans

Also see Planned Publications. Joey has volunteered to maintain a list of uncoming events where Overture papers could be submitted, everyone should add events as they become aware of them. Nico announced that a workshop is planned at ICSE this year focused on formal methods, he suggests that we could submit there too.

Any Other Business

Please note that ABZ papers are due on January 14th!

Next Meeting

January 22nd 2012, 1300 CET.