Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!lanl!jlg
From: jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: X3 Vote on Fortran 8x
Message-ID: <14101@lanl.gov>
Date: 20 Oct 89 22:27:11 GMT
References: <428@unmvax.unm.edu>
Distribution: comp.lang.fortran
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 20

From article <428@unmvax.unm.edu>, by brainerd@unmvax.unm.edu (Walt Brainerd):
> [...]                                       WG5 did request addition of
> pointers, but so did a large number of American commentors; and it replaced
> RANGE and identify, which were at least as complicated.   [...]

Pointers do _not_ replace RANGE and IDENTIFY.  I remember someone on
the committee announcing that they would never make the claim that
pointers were a replacement of those features.  In any case, pointers
don't provide all the functionality of IDENTIFY.  Pointers are more
hazardous than either of the former features.  And pointers are 'at least'
as complicated as the former features - not vice-versa.

Also, I suspect that all the public comment which asked for recursive
data structures was lumped into that "large number of American commentors"
that asked for pointers.  I know I was - I foolishly mentioned pointers
as a possible implementation strategy for recursive structures.  If
I had known what the committee would do with pointers, I wouldn't
have mentioned them at all.  I would rather do without recursive
structures that have the language contaminated with the current pointer
proposal.