Proposal To AGM Assembly SDL ’03

“Task force to identify the simplest, useful SDL subset”

Background

SDL originated as a documentation aid to help visualise state machines, both in terms of architecture and execution.

Although there is a strong interest in the subject, SDL has not found the wide acceptance in the developer community that other languages, such as C++ and Java, have enjoyed.

This may be related to the slow cycle of language evolution and standardisation, as well as the relatively specific areas of application.  It may also be because many users still only use SDL for documentation purposes.

SDL 2000 was a serious attempt to catch up, but the tool suppliers have not been enthusiastic in supporting the wide-range of enhancements and some opinions can be heard that SDL is now too complex for many users to understand.

Proposal

Building on the suggestions originally raised at the SAM workshop last June, SOLINET, proposes the SDL Forum establishes a task force to identify the simplest, useful subset of SDL.

Scope

The task force should only address the issue of the SDL subset; the parallel evolution of SDL 2000 is out of scope.  However, enhancements considered to be essential in making the subset useful should be considered.  As a framework the task force will prioritise:

• the graphical representation, ensuring auto-layout is possible
• test capabilities, such as SDL based test scripts
• ASN.1 (1994) support, including encoding/decoding of PDUs
• associated methodology issues, such as maximum integration of tool chain.

Organisation

The task force is open to participation from any SDL Forum member and will be run by a committee with editorial responsibility.  The proposed committee is  

• William Skelton, SOLINET (Lead)
• Vangelis Kollias, Teletel
• Alkis Yiannakoulias, University of Athens
• Qing Li, University of Ottawa

Reporting

The task force progress will be published on the Internet for interested parties to build on, independently of any pending standardisation activities.  An interim status report will be published after 6 months, and a final report will be presented at the next SAM workshop (June 2004).

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