Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!CMR001.BITNET!GELINASJ
From: GELINASJ@CMR001.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: FORTRAN 8X draft standard and HP/APOLLO
Message-ID: <900118.00564701.063683@CMR.CP6>
Date: 18 Jan 90 05:52:58 GMT
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Organization: The Internet
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      Our library has received the proposed draft FORTRAN 8X standard.
In case you wonder what this new language is, let me say that i think
it tries to emulate APL on an ascii terminal from these examples,
where X is a vector and A is a matrix.

APL               FORTRAN 8X                            Meaning

+/x/[1]A        SUM(PRODUCT(A,DIM=1))           Sum of products
+/(X>0)/X       SUM(X, MASK=X>0)                Sum of positive elements
max/|X          MAXVAL( ABS(X) )                Maximum norm
+/|X            SUM( ABS(X) )                   1-norm
+/+/A           SUM( A )                        Sum of all elements
iota 6          (* I=1,6 *)                     Index vector 1 2 3 4 5 6

Maybe someone can answer these questions:

1. The FORTRAN 77 standard was ready in 1978. When did APOLLO
   have a full FORTRAN 77 compiler ready?

2. Some company representatives do not approve this draft standard.
   Does HP/APOLLO have a definite position on this ?

3. What are the plans of HP/APOLLO for the next 5 years concerning
   FORTRAN 8X ? (Obviously some standard -maybe de facto- will
   have emerged in 1995, and there will not be any choice then)

No need to rush your answers. But i am interrested anyhow.

J. GELINAS       gelinasj@cmr001.bitnet