Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!uunet!dev8n.mdcbbs.com!campbell From: campbell@dev8n.mdcbbs.com (Tim Campbell) Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran Subject: Re: Fortran 90 status Message-ID: <1991Apr29.140241.1@dev8n.mdcbbs.com> Date: 29 Apr 91 14:02:41 GMT References: <1991Apr24.202115.16119@dragon.wpd.sgi.com> <1991Apr25.235111.26282@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> <1991Apr26.142249.21064@convex.com> Organization: McDonnell Douglas M&E, Cypress CA Lines: 34 Nntp-Posting-Host: sysdd Nntp-Posting-User: close Richard; Thanks for that insightful post on Fortran 90. I've long been hearing rumors about it and have been trying to learn exactly what it will do. I was especially happy to read the features in "What's good about Fortran Extended ?". I was especially happy to see structures and pointers made it into the standard . I do have one little thing I absolutely drives me nuts about Fortran 77 and I hope it's been addressed: Prototyping! The fact that any procedure can be called with any arguments (even if they're wrong) and no errors are generated. I have used an HP "lint" program for Fortran (called flint) which did _attempt_ to address this problem, although it still had problems because it issued error messages whenever a single argument to an aggregate (array) was passed where a scaler was expected. After all, I'm only passing a single element where one is expected... why should I get an error? I could forgive this, except it's particularly annoying when trying to debug a problem in a program with 26000 procs (it's a big program) - and it's difficult to wade through all those illegitimate errors in search of the real thing. Are you "in the know" on this one? Will Fortran 90 tell me if I try to pass arguments to a subroutine which doesn't match the type of arguments expected? More insight is appreciated. I owe you a beer (although I don't see myself making it to a standards meeting anytime soon). -Tim --------------------------------------------------------------------------- In real life: Tim Campbell - Electronic Data Systems Corp. Usenet: campbell@dev8.mdcbbs.com @ McDonnell Douglas M&E - Cypress, CA also: tcampbel@einstein.eds.com @ EDS - Troy, MI CompuServe: 71631,654 (alias 71631.654@compuserve.com) #include