Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!gatech!ncar!noao!arizona!mike
From: mike@arizona.edu (Mike Coffin)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Two Fortran Standards
Message-ID: <13833@megaron.arizona.edu>
Date: 8 Sep 89 13:33:30 GMT
References: <314@unmvax.unm.edu>
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson
Lines: 26

From article <314@unmvax.unm.edu>, by brainerd@unmvax.unm.edu (Walt Brainerd):

> ...In its current state, computer science departments avoid teaching
> Fortran, preferring C or Pascal. In fact, use of Fortran is
> intentionally and vigorously discouraged as its an ``ancient'' and
> ``obsolete'' language.  ...  The 8X proposal addresses and
> eliminates almost all grounds for the complaints of the computer
> science priesthood. They might even be willing to teach 8X rather
> than trying to assure the extinction of Fortran.

How so?  I'm not a member of the priesthood, but from what I've seen
of the new standard, it's about the last language I would try to teach
to a bunch of undergraduates.  The movement in Computer Science seems
to be towards smaller, more extensible languages. (Witness the rise of
functional and object-oriented languages.) Fortran 8x is huge and
monolithic.  And, if the traffic on this network is any indication,
it's not the easiest language to understand.

I'm not putting it down --- you guys know what you need, and I'm in no
position to contradict.  But I don't think you should count on CS
departments flocking to Fortran.  

-- 
Mike Coffin				mike@arizona.edu
Univ. of Ariz. Dept. of Comp. Sci.	{allegra,cmcl2}!arizona!mike
Tucson, AZ  85721			(602)621-2858