Net Meeting 79

Review Status of the Action List

See Net Meeting Actions

• 41-1: No progress. To be discussed at the upcoming workshop
• 59-1: Work is ongoing on revising the SRA pages. To be discussed at the workshop
• 75-2: Principals absent. Not discussed.
• 76-2: To be discussed at the workshop.

Overture Language Board Status

Awaiting feedback from Dr. K via Shin on various topics.

Status of VDMTools Development

Newest version

• Version 9.0.4(2014.5.2 update): This version provisionally supports followings:

1. sporadic
2. stop/stoplist

• Update to use Qt 4.2.
• Update to use omniORB 4.2.0
• Bug fixes

gather requirements

• Dr.K (SCSK) wants to gather requirements to improve VDMTools.
  • There are some limitations on how much time will be available to work on VDMTools.
  • The main suggestion given at the NM was to increase compatibility with Overture and supporting the decisions of the LB.
  • A new UI was also suggested but it is unlikely there will be time to implement one.
  • PGL will compose an email with the suggestions.

Status of the Overture Components

VDMJ

The usual dribble of bug fixes since the last meeting. The following is from the VDMJ Release Notes, though the corresponding fixes have also been made to Overture:

2014-05-22 Account for is_ expressions in type checker
2014-05-21 Set intersect can fail with named types
2014-05-20 Correct type check of while statement condition
2014-05-16 Enable type restrictions on UpdatableValues
2014-05-08 Prevent inheritance of private constructors
2014-05-08 Correction to listener handling in value assignments
2014-05-08 Correct guards for static operations and variables
2014-05-06 Correction for guards with uninitialized field expressions
2014-05-01 Change SL state record types to reflect any state invariant

The remaining Overture components are not usually discussed under this heading. PGL has a new action (79-1) to discuss moving them over to release planning.

Release Planning

Version 2.0.8 released

Version 2.0.8 was released 19 May, with small bugfixes (grab it at GitHub). Unfortunately, PGL found a regression which means that the combinatorial testing isn’t working. There is also a case where the (beta) code generation fails due to a lack of folders. I expect to include fixes for either 2.1.0 or 2.0.10

These issues highlight the need for some level of UI testing. PGL and NB have a new action (79-2) for creating an initial list of UI tests to be carried out. Automation of these tests is a serious concern.

Also, the fact that no users complained of these bugs once again highlights the need to discuss our user base and community building efforts.

Version 2.1.0 plans

The plan for version 2.1.0 is to have two “banner” features:

• Complete replacement of the old string-based POG with the new AST-based POG
• Code Generation

The release is nearly ready; first release candidate exposed a small problem with the combinatorial testing; we’ll see nearly next week if it’s fixable in a short timeframe.

Buildserver notes

We’ve set up a (third) new buildserver at AU, taking over the overture.au.dk/build.overturetool.org address. The previous two build servers have been decommissioned, and the new one appears to be working very well. We will also still continue to use the Travis CI public infrastructure, as it gives fast feedback about any branch without having to configure it on the AU buildserver.

Release Process

The status of the release process document 1 is steadily improving — JWC is reasonably certain that all of the commands are correct now. Among the things to come is the set of all the places that need to be updated once the release artefacts have been created.

It is still important that someone outside of AU has a handle on what needs to be done to perform a release, but we’re moving in that direction.

Community Development

Overture Traffic

See Download stats

New Website

• overturetool.org
  • suggestions for improvement
  • website bug reports to 2
• future of the wiki(s)
  • dev wiki is at 3 (the wiki area connected to the main code repository on github) — devs use this now
  • general wiki at 4 (the wiki area connected to the website repository) - should we migrate the general wiki?
  • The current wiki (ie the one you’re reading now) needs to be cleaned up and the migrations are a good opportunity for it. The developer materials need to be migrated over anyway and we should discuss if the same should be done for the general material, thus abandoning this wiki entirely.

The wiki and website discussions were postponed for when we have more people present at the NM.

We once again discussed the topic of community building. While its importance is recognised by all, there is still no consensus on what the best approach is. There we some suggestions made (focusing on improving our tools and methods, targeting students, a wiki clean up) but in general we need a more cohesive strategy and set of goals for community building. The issue will be discussed further at the next workshop.

Strategic Research Agenda

The SRA needs to be revised and there have been discussions on it. Old materials exit but their usefulness is questionable. Several questions have been raised such as PhD students, research topics for VDM, tying it closer to community building and the ultimate goals of the SRA.

This issue needs to be discussed further and the workshop is one possible venue for it (though there are concerns of whether we’ll have enough time to cover everything). Another possibility is to have a NM dedicated to it.

Publications Status and Plans

Updates made to Planned Publications.

Any Other Business