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From: hybl@mbph.UUCP (Albert Hybl  Dept of Biophysics  SM)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: operator precedence on FORTRAN 77
Summary: Read "Enemy of the People" by Henrik Ibsen
Keywords: unary minus, exponenation
Message-ID: <607@mbph.UUCP>
Date: 7 Sep 89 19:58:52 GMT
References: <3744@uwovax.uwo.ca> <8980@saturn.ucsc.edu> <320@unmvax.unm.edu> <360@unmvax.unm.edu>
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Maryland, School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201
Lines: 38

In posting <360@unmvax.unm.edu> from brainerd@unmvax.unm.edu,
Walt Brainerd writes:

>In article <606@mbph.UUCP>, hybl@mbph.UUCP (Albert Hybl
>Dept of Biophysics  SM) writes:
>> The gentleman from the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque
>      ^^^^^^^^^
>Do I detect a hint of sarcasm?
Gee, I thought my words were as easy to interpret as F77-extended.

>I'm not with UNM as the signature line indicates; ...
Too bad, you would be an asset to UNM.  I thought you were with
the Computer Science Department.  Although, if that were the case,
it would be strange for you to be interested in Fortran.

>> IMPLEMENTORS SHOULD NOT BE FREE TO GIVE ANY INTERPRETATION THEY WANT!
>In Fortran 8x, implementors will be required to report nonstandard
>syntax (as in the examples), . . .
I have used several mainframe systems that already contain this
feature.  In every case the system default has the option turned
off--the user has to explicitly turn it on to derive benefit from it.
I concluded that it wasn't worth dinosaur DOo-DOo!  I do not see any
reason for the implementor to second guess what the programmer
intended nor should the programmer try to second guess what the
implementor extended.  I think extensions to F88 could be ok--but only
if they are official extensions arrived at by a sensible review
process and published in an appropriate journal.  A language
standard should not contain the 'if it is standard, it is portable;
if it is non-standard, anything is allowable' nonsense!
                       ^^^^^^^^

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