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2026 in the programming language standards’ world
This week I was on a virtual meeting of IST/5, the BSI committee responsible for programming language standards in the UK. It’s been three years since I last reported on the programming language standards’ world, what has been going on?
tl;dr: Business as usual, with a handful of active committees.
I have been meeting secretary for the last few years, and sometimes struggle to write something in the minutes, other than: “The document was noted”, or “No action”. IST/5 is a management committee whose job is to check that the various programming language panels/committees (who do the technical work) follow the procedures. When experienced people are chairing the technical work, procedures are followed, and IST/5 get to tick a box.
The latest revision of C was intended to be published in 2023, hence the commonly used name C23, but slipped to 2024, and there are people who refer to it as C24. The plan is for the next revision to be published in 2028. Over the last few years there has been a significant increase in proposals for new languages features. C has started to follow in the footsteps of C++ (the committee is currently an order of magnitude smaller), attracting bored consultants looking for a creative outlet.
The ISO C++ committee acquired a new chief sheep herder, who has been restructuring the organization of the committee, which had outgrown its previous way of working.
The C++26 document is out for balloting by SC22‘s 28 P-member countries. It’s possible that this vote will fail (people in various National bodies are canvassing for No votes). The sticking point is contracts, which was removed from the C++20 draft to enable it to progress, and did not make it into C++23. Stroustrup, voted against the proposal, and has said (53 minute mark) “…it’s claimed to be a minimal viable product. It’s not minimal, it’s not viable.” The ballot closes on 27 September.
BSI is active on the climate bandwagon, and is constantly reminding its committees about the London Declaration (net-zero, etc). What can a programming language standards’ committee do to reduce emissions and cut electricity use? There have been various studies comparing the electricity consumed by different language constructs. I have not written about them on this blog because they were either poorly run, or the results were essentially noise. Interpreted languages obviously consume more electricity than compiled languages. However, none of the three languages within SC22 that are commonly interpreted (WG8 BASIC, WG16 ISLISP, and WG17 Prolog) are actively being worked on.
Programming language standards were among the first to support the non-8-bit character sets (SC2 Coded Character Sets). Andrew West was an active member of SC2 and attended IST/5 meetings to report what was going on. Andrew died towards the end of last year, and has an obituary in The Guardian.
At the start of the year BSI moved to new headquarters in Covent Garden, about 100 yards up the road from the Royal Opera House/Royal Ballet. A rather different ambience than an office block above Gunnersbury underground station (which is being converted to flats). This week’s IST/5 meeting was intended to be hybrid, to have a chance to meet new faces (and check out the plush new offices). However, BSI’s net-zero rules restrict us to online only; no BSI tea and biscuits for us 🙁 I walked past the building one evening a few weeks ago, and pressed by nose against the door, but could not see any BSI signage through the tinted glass.
UK based readers can apply to join a panel. Existing panel members are emailed the CV of applicants, and asked if “… applicant’s knowledge would be beneficial to the work programme and panel…”. Anybody can join the US Standards body, INCITS, by paying an annual fee for membership of a language committee ($1,530/$2,703).
INCITS recently introduced a new rule which prevents its members being a member of any corresponding National committee: “However, Individuals who are participating as members of other National Bodies (NBs) for an International Technical Committee (TC) or Subcommittee (SC) are not permitted to participate in INCITS IOEs responsible for the same international standards activities. This is to ensure the confidentiality of the USNB discussions and positions and to avoid conflict of interests.”
Does the UK need the PL/1 Standard?
Like everything else language standards are born and eventually die. IST/5, the UK programming language committee, is considering whether the British Standard for PL/1 should be withdrawn (there are two standards, ISO 6160:1979 which has been reconfirmed multiple times since 1979, most recently in 2008, and a standardized subset ISO 6522:1992, also last confirmed in 2008).
A language standard is born through the efforts of a group of enthusiastic people. A language standard dies because there is no enthusiast (a group of one is often sufficient) to sing its praises (or at least be willing to be a name on a list that is willing to say, every five years, that the existing document should be reconfirmed).
It is 20 years since IST/5 last had a member responsible for PL/1, but who is to say that nobody in the UK is interested in maintaining the PL/1 standard? Unlike many other programming language ISO Standards there was never an ISO SC22 committee responsible for PL/1. All of the work was done by members of the US committee responsible for programming language PL 22 (up until a few years ago this was ANSI committee X3). A UK person could have paid his dues and been involved in the US based work; I don’t have access to a list of committee meeting attendees and so cannot say for sure that there was no UK involvement.
A member of IST/5, David Muxworthy, has been trying to find somebody in the UK with an interest in maintaining the PL/1 standard. A post to the newsgroup comp.lang.pl1 eventually drew a response from a PL/1 developer who said he would not be affected if the British Standard was withdrawn.
GNU compiler development is often a useful source of information. In this case the PL/1 web page is dated 2007.
In 2008 John Klensin, the ISO PL/1 project editor, wrote: “No activities or requests for additions or clarifications during the last year or, indeed, the last decade. Both ISO 6160 and the underlying US national document, ANS X3.53-1976 (now ANSI/INCITS-53/1976), have been reaffirmed multiple times. The US Standard has been stabilized and the corresponding technical activity was eliminated earlier this year”.
It looks like the British Standard for PL/1 is not going to live past the date of its next formal review in 2013. Thirty four years would then be the time span, from publication of last standard containing new material to formal withdrawal of all standards, to outlive. I wonder if any current member of either of the C or C++ committees will live to see this happen to their work?
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