Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!haven!umbc3!mbph!hybl From: hybl@mbph.UUCP (Albert Hybl Dept of Biophysics SM) Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran Subject: Re: Two Fortran Standards Summary: Your needs assessment is inadequate Message-ID: <608@mbph.UUCP> Date: 12 Sep 89 11:42:25 GMT References: : <1073@cernvax.UUCP> Organization: University of Maryland, School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201 Lines: 62 In message from bill@ssd.harris.com Bill Leonard concocted the following hypothetical: >... Let's say I have a >customer bidding for a government contract to provide a flight >simulator for the new F-1600 fighter jet, ... He's already >gotten an exception from DoD to use FORTRAN instead of Ada (this does >happen, by the way). ... >Note that [Bill's] customer didn't care about portability: >only that the program behaves the same on the same hardware. Hmm, can we conclude that for this application that either (1) FORTRAN is better; or (2) the Government doesn't care about portability; or (3) Reagan trickle-down theory is at work. Bill, please provide a 10-20 page explanation of why the government no longer considers FORTRAN an acceptable computer language. Please plot monthly statistics showing the percentage of exceptions granted by the government since ADA was adopted; include a projection into the future. Has anyone asked the government under what circumstances they would consider returning to a Fortran standard? Isn't there more economic incentive for persuading them to come back? Wouldn't a substantially improved Fortran help? Is FORTRAN best for Bill's customer? Flight simulation suggests the need for many real time features. Even a cursory examination of X3.9-1978 standard shows that no interface exists for real time applications. In message from bill@ssd.harris.com, Bill Leonard writes: ... >Most vendor extensions are aimed at specialized markets >(e.g., real-time simulation, process control, etc.). I'd like to debate that point, but-- It seems that your justification for two FORTRAN standards depends on the existence of implementor extensions--especially real-time interface extensions. Perusing the list of available ANSI documents, I found the following item: "ISO 7846-1985, Industrial real-time FORTRAN--Application for the control of industrial processes, $39.00." Isn't that already a more standard standard! Since X3.9-1978 is without any standardized features for real-time applications, it surely is not suitable for flight simulation and should not exist as a stand-alone standard in order to legitimize a chaotic collection of implementor extensions. I believe that the group of "implementor extensions" should be empty! If there are to be extensions, they should be Official sanctioned extensions that you and others on the X3J3 committee have reviewed. Sections 1.3.2(4) and 1.4 as contained in the X3.9-1978 document are antithetical to the purpose described in section 1.1. In my view X3.9-1978 is not a standard--it is only a document that is more or less useful for the stated purpose. "The purpose of this standard is to promote portability of FORTRAN programs for use on a variety of data processing systems." As long as sections 1.3.2(4) and 1.4 remain in the document the standard is self-destructive (suicidal). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Albert Hybl, PhD. Office UUCP: uunet!mimsy!mbph!hybl Department of Biophysics Home UUCP: uunet!mimsy!mbph!hybl!ah University of Maryland CoSy: ahybl School of Medicine Baltimore, MD 21201 Phone: (301) 328-7940 (Office) ----------------------------------------------------------------------