Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca!mroussel
From: mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Marc Roussel)
Subject: Re: Fortran 90 status
Message-ID: <1991May12.190710.9294@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>
Organization: Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto
References: <3246@travis.csd.harris.com> <1991May10.002337.22669@ariel.unm.edu> <16101@smoke.brl.mil>
Distribution: comp
Date: Sun, 12 May 1991 19:07:10 GMT

In article <16101@smoke.brl.mil> chidsey@smoke.brl.mil (Irving Chidsey) writes:
>	Could we not agree to add to Fortran every 5 years or so those
>new constructs which have proven to be valuable, discuss those directions
>that might be desirable to explore next, but to only standardize on that
>which was proven?

     I think this is an interesting idea.  I hope Irving doesn't mind if
I expand on it a bit.
     The current standard has two categories of constructs: "general"
and "deprecated".  (I'm not sure what terminology the standard actually
uses.  I trust my usage is clear enough.  The second class corresponds
to old language features retained only for compatibility and which may be
removed in the next round of standardization, while the first category refers to
everything else.)  Perhaps the next round should have three classes:
"general", "deprecated" and "exploratory".  Implementation of exploratory
features would be encouraged, but not required.  We could throw into
this new category anything we're not sure about but would like to try.
We could probably agree on exploratory features faster than we could
agree on general features since they wouldn't be perceived to be cast in
stone.  Exploratory features would also allow vendors who thought that the
particular version espoused by the standard was somehow wrong
(inefficient, or whatever) to explore alternate ways to deliver
identical functionality.  This would be a great stimulus to development
of the language.

				Marc R. Roussel
                                mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca