Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!ncar!unmvax!brainerd
From: brainerd@unmvax.unm.edu (Walt Brainerd)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: X3 Vote on Fortran 8x
Message-ID: <426@unmvax.unm.edu>
Date: 19 Oct 89 23:58:13 GMT
References: <2192@convex.UUCP>
Distribution: comp.lang.fortran
Organization: University of New Mexico at Albuquerque
Lines: 30

In article <2192@convex.UUCP>, psmith@mozart.uucp (Presley Smith) writes:
> 
> The X3 committee voted today by a large margin to retain ANSI X3.9-1978,
> the current FORTRAN 77 standard, as an active standard of the American
> National Standards Institute (ANSI) and to make the proposed Fortran 8x a
> separate standard.
> 
> This vote is good news for the ENTIRE FORTRAN community.

It is nice to have Papa Presley tell us what is good for us;
I guess we must assume that the majority of X3J3 (including most
members representing users) didn't realize this previously when
they voted consistently against two standards in any form and even
against any sort of subsetting.

This vote will have many effects that could be _disastrous_ for the
ENTIRE Fortran community.  The reasons have been elaborated previously
on this news, but the most serious may be that the US appears to have
told the world that we are no longer interested in cooperating with them
in producing a Fortran standard.  Another symptom of the economic decline
of the US, it seems to me.  It amazes me that people who claim to be experts
in the business of computing (or any other, for that matter) can formally
vote to change the basic goals and design specs of a project that is
in a final testing phase and believe that the product produced is consistent
with the new goals and specs.
-- 
Walt Brainerd  Unicomp, Inc.           brainerd@unmvax.cs.unm.edu
               2002 Quail Run Dr. NE
               Albuquerque, NM 87122
               505/275-0800