Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!vsnyder
From: vsnyder@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Van Snyder)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Fortran 90 information wanted
Message-ID: <1991Mar19.021150.22417@jato.jpl.nasa.gov>
Date: 19 Mar 91 02:11:50 GMT
References: <1991Mar7.142706.16161@ugle.unit.no> <1991Mar14.231007.24534@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM>
Reply-To: vsnyder@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Van Snyder)
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Lines: 44

In article <1991Mar14.231007.24534@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM> rbe@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM (Robert Bernecky) writes:
>The standard is certainly available in draft form. I don't know 
>its state otherwise.
>
The standard finished the third public review in December.  I think there were
14 comment letters.  X3J3 has resolved to make ONLY editorial changes in the
standard.  OSI / WG2.5 are itching to publish a standard.

You can get a copy of the draft standard for $50(!) from Global Engineering
Documents in Irvine, CA (Sorry, I don't know their street address).  You
may be able to get it in machine readable (nroff) form from Bob Allison at
Microsoft (uunet!microsoft!bobal ?).  I KNOW you can get it in machine
readable from from Walt Brainerd, but I've lost his E-mail address.  The
secretary of X3J3 is Jerrold L. Wagener, Amoco Production Research, PO Box
3385, Tulsa, OK 74102 (918/660-3978).  Kurt Hirchert (hirchert@ncsa.uiuc.edu)
maintains a mailing list of developers.  Either Jerry or Kurt should be able
to tell you more, or put you in touch with Walt.

>I also have an article which is claimed to have appeared in the January 1991
>issue of SIGPLAN Notices ( Thanks to Canada Post, mine hasn't arrived
>yet...), which isn't particularly friendly to Fortran 90, but 
>you might find it interesting.
>
>It's titled "Fortran 90 Arrays". Due to my error, the email address
>noted in the article is wrong. It should either be the address
>I'm using to send this from (rbe@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM) or
>bernecky@itrchq.itrc.on.ca.  I prefer rbe@yrloc...
>
You didn't lose much by missing the Sigplan article.  It was mainly moaning
that Fortran 90 wasn't APL.  It's not that some of the author's points were
incorrect: Fortran 90 unnecessarily has the "beloved Fortran tacked-on look,"
which could have been greatly repaired by paying more attention to regularity
in the language design, and using "adverbs" as suggested in the Sigplan article.
But the effect would have been much greater if the author had expressed his
sentiment directly to X3J3 in the first public comment.  Those of us who
agree in principle with him were greatly outnumbered by those (on the committee
and in the public at large) who believe things like "Fortran programmers like
to see what their code is doing [at the machine level] by looking at it" and
"Real relationals were a mistake in Fortran IV..." etc.

-- 
vsnyder@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov
ames!elroy!jato!vsnyder
vsnyder@jato.uucp