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From: hirchert@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: X3 Vote on Fortran 8x
Message-ID: <50500158@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 20 Oct 89 17:31:00 GMT
References: <2192@convex.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:convex.UUCP:2192:uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:50500158:000:3259
Nf-From: uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!hirchert    Oct 20 12:31:00 1989


It should be obvious by now that many of us do not share Presley's
enthusiasm for X3's action.

For me, the issue is _not_ the retention of FORTRAN 77 as a standard.
Although I believe that action to be unfortunate, I do not share the alarmist
view that it is a disaster.  Because FORTRAN 77 will not be continued as an
ISO standard, vendors wishing to compete in world markets will still have to
implement Fortran 8x.  Thus, IBM, DEC, and the other big vendors are all
likely to have Fortran 8x available.  In fact, because maintaining multiple
compilers can be expensive, it is likely that their Fortran 8x compiler will
also be their FORTRAN 77 compiler.  Thus, Fortran 8x compilers are likely to
be widely available.  As people start writing programs using Fortran 8x
features, users whose vendors don't implement Fortran 8x are going to find that
they will have difficulty porting these programs to their machines.  This
will generate customer dissatisfaction.  Ultimately, this will force these
vendors to also implement Fortran 8x.

In other words, the retension of FORTRAN 77 may delay the time that some
vendors find it necessary to implement Fortran 8x, but vendors who assume
that they will never have to do so are probably committing marketing suicide.

The disaster is in the _way_ that X3 has chosen to retain FORTRAN 77.
Proponents of this action have suggested that this should not cause problems
in the international community.  Considering the uproar it has already caused,
this view must be regarded as self-delusion.  Perhaps X3 can convince the
international community that the fact that X3J3 is no longer charged with
producing a revision of FORTRAN 77 doesn't really mean that they have
repudiated their commitment to produce one for ISO, but that is by no means
certain.  Why did X3 choose to gamble?

Even if the political issues can be resolved, the fact that ANSI Fortran is
_drastically_ different from ISO Fortran and that it is ANSI Fortran Extended
that corresponds to ISO Fortran is likely to be the source of many headaches.
(The fact that many vendors already call their product Fortran Extended isn't
going to help, either.)

I certainly wouldn't recommend that X3J3 make an major changes in the
technical content of Fortran 8x as a result of this action.  It already has
enough problems:
. How do you modify the document so that nowhere in its approximately 300 pages
  does it indicate whether the name of the language it is defining is
  Fortran or Fortran Extended?  (So that only the document title would
  differ between ANSI Fortran Extended and ISO Fortran)
. How do you modify all the material that compares FORTRAN 77 and Fortran 8x
  rules and features so that there is never an indication of whether Fortran 8x
  supercedes FORTRAN 77 or supplements FORTRAN 77? (Since those relations will
  be different for ISO and ANSI)
. How do you get all the above done in a timely fashion?  (ISO is already
  annoyed at all the delays ANSI has caused.  This time, ISO might just give
  up on ANSI and go write its own standard.  If none of the ANSI standards
  ended up corresponding to ISO Fortran, that _would_ be a disaster!)

Kurt W. Hirchert     hirchert@ncsa.uiuc.edu
National Center for Supercomputing Applications