Subject: Some words of encouragement from Sun

From: [email-masked] (Ronald F Boisvert)
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 09:55:09 -0400

James Gosling visited our group here at NIST a few weeks ago.  We had
a very interesting discussion about numerics in Java.  Gosling is
genuinely interested in the input of the Forum, and seems to be in
general agreement with our recommendations.  The biggest problem
seems to be that there is no one within Sun with the time and energy
to do the the work to completely specify language changes and carry
them forward through the public review process.

Of course, when pressures from strong commercial players are brought
to bear things tend to happen.  Sun's recent Proposal for Extended
Floating-Point Semantics in Java is an example.  Tim Lindholm of Sun,
one of the developers of the original JVM, is the key technical
contact for this floating-point proposal.  Gosling briefed Tim about
the Forum's work, and Tim had a long conversation with Roldan Pozo
earlier this week.  (Joe Darcy has also been providing input to Sun
which is being taken seriously.)  I sent Tim a pointer to our draft
report, which elicited the attached encouraging response.

It is clear, however, that the Forum must continue to speak forcefully
and authoritatively on behalf of the community if we are to make real
progress.

Ron

----- Begin Included Message -----

>From [email-masked]  Wed Sep  2 19:42:14 1998
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1998 16:51:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: Tim Lindholm <[email-masked]>
Reply-To: Tim Lindholm <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Java Grande Forum Numerics Working Group
To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Content-MD5: sRicBD3LQ4zNCrCa9sMw6A==
Content-Length: 3072

Hi Ron,

Thanks for the pointer.  We're trying to get an agreement on a proposal
that is very much in line with the recommendation of this report for
those areas we have a chance to change right now.  Our latest revisions
were catalyzed by email from Joe Darcy, and are in quite close
agreement with the analogous parts of the JGNWG report.  It is not yet
100% clear that we will be able to do what we are proposing for JDK
1.2, but I think people will be generally happy if we can.  I also
think they would understand why we had to deviate in a few details.

In the future I want to do this differently.  It's ridiculous that you
guys have had so little input into our work until just recently, when
it's almost too late to do anything.  I want there to be open dialog
with Java Grande and presumably others as part of the planning of our
next Java release.  Regardless of what we are able to accomplish for
1.2, we should design the next technology release in a more
participatory fashion.  That still doesn't guarantee you get what you
want, but if not you'd at least have played a part in the decision.

Thanks again for your and Roldan's help...

-- Tim

> Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 18:01:18 -0400
> From: [email-masked] (Ronald F Boisvert)
> To: Timothy.Lindholm@Eng
> Subject: Java Grande Forum Numerics Working Group
> Cc: [email-masked]
> 
> Hi Tim ... 
> 
> Roldan Pozo asked me to fill you in on the report of
> the Java Grande Numerics Working Group.  The report is at
> 
>    http://math.nist.gov/javanumerics/report-v3.html
> 
> The report covers a number of issues that the Forum sees as
> critical for Java's acceptance in the numerical community.
> One of these is improvements in floating-point.  I know that
> this is your immediate concern.  
> 
> This report is undergoing some minor mods yet.  We had planned
> to submit the floating point portion to Sun before the Sept 15
> deadline.  The Working Group has been discussing these issues
> since the spring.  We are planning to release the document to
> the public in a few weeks to begin to gather input from an
> even wider community.
> 
> Thanks for taking an interest in what we are doing.  We are
> quite hopeful that Java can _eventually_ be a great language for
> scientific computing.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Ron Boisvert
> Chief, Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division
> Editor-in-Chief, ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software
> ------------------------------------------+---------------------------
> Building 820, Room 365                    | Voice +1-301-975-3812
> National Institute of Standards and Tech. | Fax +1-301-990-4127
> Gaithersburg, MD 20899 USA                |  Email [email-masked]
> ------------------------------------------+---------------------------
>         URL  http://math.nist.gov/mcsd/Staff/RBoisvert/
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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---

From: Dennis Gannon <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 11:46:46 -0500 (EST)

Hi Grande Folks,

ISCOPE 98 is being held in Santa Fe, New Mexico on Dec. 8-11.
there will be a panel session on java and i am looking for
volunteers willing to present various parts of the Grande
Manifesto to this group.  please let me know if you were
planning on going, or if you feel you might be able to help.
thanks,
dennis
ps: if i don't get a lot of takers, i will call on some
of you individually.

---

From: "George K. Thiruvathukal" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 17:10:15 -0500

Hi Ron,

I find this particularly encouraging, and "way to go" to both of you for
ensuring the Forum and working group are recognized as key contributors and
important sources of input. What I really like about the response is that
there seems to be interest, at least for the numerics issues, in getting us
more directly connected to the development/design process for future
instances of Java.

I truly hope we can achieve this form of dialog with respect to the hot
issue of the concurrency/applications working group, that being RMI.

Thanks for keeping us updated,
George

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| George K. Thiruvathukal                                            |
| Loyola University Chicago          Tele: 773.508.3558              |
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked]
> [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of Ronald F
> Boisvert
> Sent: Thursday, September 03, 1998 8:55 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: Some words of encouragement from Sun
>
>
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> Hi Ron,
>