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From: PDM1881%mvs.draper.com@RELAY.CS.NET
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: RE: REACTIONS TO 8X VOTE
Message-ID: <7485@xenna.Xylogics.COM>
Date: 24 Oct 89 06:54:55 GMT
Sender: uucp@Xylogics.COM
Lines: 98


>
> > This vote is good news for the ENTIRE FORTRAN community.
>
> PRESLEY, YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS!  It is an unmitigated disaster.
>

I agree with both sides!!!

Clearly, it is in everyone's best interest to have a single standard.
The problem is that X3J3 has done a terrible job.  First they spent
several years cooking up a strange brew.  Then when we finally figured
out what they had done, they didn't listen to our complaints.

  (Because the previous X3J3 did such a superlative job on FORTRAN 77,
  we were complacent during the early years of the new committee.  How
  many people even considered that it was a new committee?)

As I read it, WG5 is desperate for a new standard and will make do with
Fortran 8x.  Some of us in the U.S. want the right standard.  It is my
hope that Fortran 8x will be defeated and will not become an ANSI
standard.  Yes, it is truly unfortunate that ISO is going the other way.
As I understand it, there is dissention in the European community as
well, if not in WG5 votes, so there may be some hope.

As a long time member of the SHARE FORTRAN Project, I personally urged
that X3 retain the FORTRAN 77 standard.  My intent remains one standard.
I wish to reject Fortran 8x, even if it is adopted, and it appears
likely that 8x will be adopted in the face of major objections.

What else can I do?  X3J3 has consistently refused to make the kind of
sweeping changes to 8x which are required.  Their small simplifications
have been largely cancelled by recent additions.  I feel it is likely
that a majority of FORTRAN programmers in the U.S. do not want 8x.  The
vast majority at my company certainly don't want it.  Should I meekly go
along?  Ultimately, all I get to say is yes or no.  I say no.

Standards are supposed to "codify existing practice."  FORTRAN 77
clearly did that, when it was approved.  Fortran 8x just as clearly does
not.  It contains two or three times as many changes as it should.  8x
makes fundamental changes in how the language should be used.  Keep in
mind that a significant number of active FORTRAN programmers do not know
the correct IF-THEN-ELSE-ENDIF syntax of FORTRAN 77 well enough to use
it regularly.

Fortran 8x is far too complicated.  It will require new tools -
compilers, debuggers, analyzers - rather than improvements to existing
tools.  Why should we pay for them?  Here is a cursory list of features
which should be considered for removal:

  *  MODULE-USE.  A decent INCLUDE is what we really need.

  *  The gratuitous change from CHARACTER*n to CHARACTER (LEN=n).  Also,
     the double colon (::).

  *  The KIND parameter.
     - Use a new data type such as GRAPHIC for double byte characters.
     - Define a minimum precision for REAL such as 10 decimal digits.
       This would propagate the change to existing code.  Instructions
       to the processor may specify a different precision for REAL and
       DOUBLE PRECISION, primarily to allow old programs to function
       without change.

  *  Internal procedures.

  *  Masked array assignment.

  *  Vector subscripts.

  *  Pointers.

The proposed standardization of INCLUDE is useless.  It has clearly been
written to silence those who clamored for it, without an attempt to
provide a portable tool.  The authors clearly want MODULE-USE to be
employed and INCLUDE to be avoided.

The current definition of "INCLUDE line" is processor dependent in the
source code.  Some people like that, but it must be extended to the
"INCLUDE statement":

  INCLUDE  '(lib-name)'

  "lib-name" is a Fortran name of 6 characters or less (the processor is
             permitted to allow longer names).

The processor must support instructions independent of the source
program defining where all referenced source text resides.  It is
intended that these instructions define one or more libraries or
directories to be searched according to known rules for each "lib-name".
This form is required to provide a portable, standard, INCLUDE facility.

X3J3 should have defined full FORTRAN 77 as the subset for the new
standard, and provided it on the left side of facing pages.  BNF is OK,
so long as it is used for both, so that comparisons can easily be made.

Pete Matthews, Jr.
C. S. Draper Lab.
(My own opinions, of course.)