Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!ufqtp!bernhold From: bernhold@qtp.ufl.edu (David E. Bernholdt) Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran Subject: Re: Two Fortran Standards Message-ID: <649@orange19.qtp.ufl.edu> Date: 26 Aug 89 19:27:11 GMT References: <282@unmvax.unm.edu> <303@unmvax.unm.edu> <12687@pur-ee.UUCP> Reply-To: bernhold@orange19 (David E. Bernholdt) Organization: University of Florida Quantum Theory Project Lines: 57 In article <12687@pur-ee.UUCP> hankd@pur-ee.UUCP (Hank Dietz) writes: >I've talked to many folk about the standard, and the comments fall into four >catagories: [[ in abbreviated form... ]] > >[1] "No comment" >[2] "I hate the 8x standard and will not use it" >[3] I like the standard because I believe it will finally kill Fortran. >[4] I like the standard because we really needed the array extensions, > although some of that other stuff.... (Heard only from X3J3 members > in favor of 8x....) > >Most people seem to be [1] or [2]. Have others gotten similar feedback? > Although I couldn't afford to plunk down $50 for a copy of the draft standard (I hope somebody is listening at ANSI) and didn't see a copy until after the comment period closed, I'll give you my opinion (in brief) right here: I like it. *Many* of the additions are things that I've gone to a great deal of trouble to try to write portably in F77. They are things that I use *now*. The array additions are great -- I already use BLAS for everything possible. The array extension would make it even simpler. Did you ever try to take a code that uses calls to the double precision BLAS and run it on a machine where you work in single precision? You change all of your BLAS calls to single precision or you insert dummy routines to simply call the single precision version -- and pay for the extra subroutine call. Yes, I know that some vendors, like Cray, have a compiler switch to make everything single precision -- but that only works for variables, not subroutines! Dynamic allocation of memory is also terribly useful -- a colleague of mine wrote an entire subroutine library to handle this in F77 by making calls to the appropriate (and very diverse) system routines that handle this on various machines and enforcing a special calling structure in programs (i.e. calls to anything that wants to use an allocated array must go through an intermediate routine which allocates the array and passes it in to the real routine). This is just one of the many things that 8x would make automatic and *PORTABLE*!!!!! In addition, the source format changes, the new control constructs, new I/O capabilities, new intrinsic functions, are all very useful. I won't go into any more details...you get the idea. So there you have it, at least one person in the world in favor of 8x. Maybe if I can get a good look at the new draft, I can put this in writing to the committee... -- David Bernholdt bernhold@qtp.ufl.edu Quantum Theory Project bernhold@ufpine.bitnet University of Florida Gainesville, FL 32611 904/392 6365