REPORT ON THE MEETING OF THE EXPERT GROUP HELD ON SEPTEMBER 15TH AND 16TH 1970 IN VIEW OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AN INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP89B01354R000100060006-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 17
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 8, 2008
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: September 1, 1970
• Content Type: REPORT

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17IRENCIt
R E, P O R T
on. the meeting of the Expert Grou
held on eutember 15th and 16th 1970
in view of the establishment of an
International Institute for Sofware ncering
-
INTflODUCTION
As agreed upon, during the conference, held in Paris on July 9th 1970,
Institute Directors and Heads of Planning Departments concerned with the founca;t:o:.
.of an Intcrnaticnal Institute for Software Engineering met at 3 p. m. on Tuesday
Septr,rnber 15th 1970 at the Inctitut de Recherche d'Iihformatique et d'Auto,nz7.tia~e
(11;.I ), i)omaine de Voluceau, 78-Rocquencourt, France, by request of Frofes~cr
LAUDET, Director of the said Institute.
The meeting was attended by:
- German Federal Republic (G. F. R. )
M. GNATZ, Deputy of Professor BAUER
('Technischen Hochshule Munchen Birlinghoven. Munchen)
.. France
Professor LAUDET, Director of IRIA
. M. GRIFFITHS, Deputy of Professor BOLLIET (Grenoble Uiniver. ity)
M. SIMIAN (Toulouse University)
- 'treat Britain
Dr. POOLE ) (Cuiham Laboratory
Dr. MORTON ) Abingdon - Berkshire)
- Greece
. Dr. KONTOS - Greek Commission for Atomic Energy, Democri_os, 'Athens.
- Italy
. Dr. A.-61DRONICO ) Deputies of Professor CAPRIZ (Istituto'di Elaborazior.<
. Dr. ONESTO ) della Informazione - Pisa)
The meeting was also attended by: -
Messrs J.'ERONNE (Technical Adviser -? Scientific Affairs Department
French Foreign Office - Paris (France))
RENARD (Delegation for Informatics, Paris (France)
and BLAKE (Scientific Affairs Department - OTAN)
Secretary to the meeting: M. RODE, IRIA (France).
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The Agenda was is follows:
1?) Attempt at the definition of a future programme of work for the
taking part in the scheme-.
2?) Attempt at the definition of the part of thi- programme to be reserved to
the "Central nucleus".
3?) Attempt at a coordination of the work in process at these insi.itutes.
I - OBJECT and INTEREST of the MEETING .of the EXPERTS.
After welcoming the participants and thanking them for their presence,
M. LAUDET invites M. PERONNE and M. RENARD to recall the object and
of the meeting.
After having excused the absence of M. de BOISGELIN, who is at p-eser?:
in U.S.A. , and welcomed the participants on behalf of the French Ministry for
Foreign Affairs, M. PERONNE stresses how impor-.ant it is, to his mind, tha; a
contact should have been established as quickly as possible between the scie::_sts
interested in the scheme. To his eyes, the chances of the future Institute s '--a:-'
appear in the light of the-meetings between the responsible scientists and the '.slit ...-
shall first and essentially come to life through the scientists,
1.2. M. RENARD points out that he had not been present at the OTA-N prelem_--
nary meeting on the scheme and recalls that the question at stake is the estabEs:..A_~ -:
of an international Institute for the industrialization of software. The discuss'ons
on this scheme at government level have particularly dealt with the two follow
points:
. the direction that can be given to research in this field, with ref rci cc
scientific subjects proposed;
the part of that research which can be centralized, the part which can
decentralized and the respective importance of these two parts.
Before the structure of the Institute can be given a definite form,' it should
be normal that a certain number of countries should have adopted a concrete 2-- c
of action in this field, each country, for instance, financing an initial set of resear
work, on which the participants in the scheme can be concerned. Hence, for
M. RENARD the twofold interest of the present meeting:
An attempt at defining the directions in which the teams of searchers can be
set to work in this field;
An attempt at defining how far this research can be:
decentralized;
or - centralized. -
M. LAUDET then suggests an examination of the Agenda.
II - ATTEMPT at a DEFINITION of a FUTURE PROGRAMIvME of WORK for the
INSTITUTES.
H. 1. M-. LAUDET points out that a very serious work has alrf ad': bier: Der o::
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and wishes to have the opinion of the participants on two documents (?) w}:ic:.:._-
have been sent before the meeting. As suggested by Dr. MORTON (Gre
he invites then uo state what their laboratory can achieve. in the programme cc
plated.
II.1.1 - Dr. ANDRONICO and. Dr. ONESTO (Italy) propose the following
of work for the Pisa Institute:
Work in Progress: StudV'of porta.bility for small. computers:
SILL, a self extensible language has. b,-en develop o'd with the g,:nerai
purpose of describing programmation systems independent :from the caicul.-:'_,--.
SEL has been experimented on the HP 2116/B calculator and has bee:-
-operational since February 1970. Its present version is conversatio:::_l; an
optimized and extended version is at present being experimented on the same
calculator.
An exchange of view follows on the subject with the Culh.am Laboratory
(Great Britain).
Future research: Portability and self-extension, theory_ eval_ua-ti_or_l:
During the year 1971, the laboratory shall use an IBM 360/67 calcul=.:or.
Studies are now being carried out to experiment SEL on a calculator of sc
great a power, not only about the portability problem but also about t.'-__:5 cthe_
major problem in the field of software engineering i.e. the problem o auto-
extension.
The laboratory is also interested, though in a less definite and more
general way than with the SEL system, with theoretical research on a _orrnal
definition of ina'hines and programmes unrelated to the computer. in ,tee
opinion of Dr. ANDI,ONICO an!I Dr. ONESTO, this type of research s::ll
belongs to the field of software engineering i.e. to i_ic problem of eva~uatioa.
11.1.2 - After having excused the absence of M. BOLLIET, at present in Rumran_ia.,
M. GRIFFITHS then expounds the plans of the Grenoble University:
Programme transfer,
A list of programmes is at present available written in a macroprocessor
language for MINI 360 calculators. These programmes con-stitute an i:_:erpre-
ter-analyzer for the ALGOL 60 language. The transfert of the programmes
implies a precise definition of the necessary interface for these programmes
to be incorporated in an exploitation system.
-
Definition and evaluation of algorithms:
Fundamental algorithms for writing exploitation systems can be de*ned
in a clear and precise way, e.g. by using the APL language. These algorit:h:.-s
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1) "Recommendations of the Expert Committee for the establishment of an Ir.terra-
tional Institution".
2) " Suggestions for a programme of work"..
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can offer to the persons defining such systems a possible choice for each
point to be decided under decision. An eventual evaluation of the algo.rithn s
must render more scientific the process of a choice between the various
possibilities.
11.1.3 - After having excused the absence of Professor BAUER, now unwell,
M. GNATZ expounds the following plans of cooperation with the Munich institute:
One of the major points in the programme of work of this Institute is the por-
ability problem. A possible approach to this question may be achieved with the
three following series of work performed at Munich:
Low level prograznmation languages (PL 360, BCPL, Bliss and PS 440):
PS 440 is used at present for the writing of an operational system for
TR 440.
.
The Munich Institute should like to cooperate in that field for the follovvin
points:
study of a low-level. programmation language unrelated to mach-ne:
possibility of writing the compiler of the low-level programin