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From: wsb@boise.Eng.Sun.COM (Walt Brainerd)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Fortran 90 status
Summary: Not so fast
Message-ID: <13372@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 15 May 91 20:36:15 GMT
References: <3246@travis.csd.harris.com> <1991May10.002337.22669@ariel.unm.edu> <CDHWILLI.91May13233601@exua.exua.exeter.ac.uk>
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In article <CDHWILLI.91May13233601@exua.exua.exeter.ac.uk>, CDHWilli@exua.exeter.ac.uk (Charles Williams) writes:
> >mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Marc Roussel)
> 
> writes
> 
> >    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...
> 
> I seem to recall noting that the Standard is sufficiently broad-minded
> not only to introduce new feature(s?) and deprecate them straight away.

One term used in the Fortran 90 standard is "deleted", of which there are NONE
(these would be features in Fortran 77, but not in Fortran 90).  Note again:
there are NONE.

The other is "obsolescent", which means there are better ways in Fortran 77 <---
of doing the same thing (in other words, they were obsolete long ago).  Of
these, only one (alternate return) was new in Fortran 77; none are new in
Fortran 90.  The others are hot items like the arithmetic IF, the PAUSE
statement, the H edit descriptor, etc.  These MAY be removed from Fortran 2000
and, if the marketplace dictates, disappear from your compiler in 2030
(not exactly "straight away", even for the alternate return).  This
corresponds to Roussel's "deprecated".

Some of us think that there are new features in Fortran 90 that are _worthy_
of being called obsolete, but there aren't any so labeled.
--
Walt Brainerd               Sun Microsystems, Inc.
walt.brainerd@eng.sun.com   MS MTV 5-40
                            Mountain View, CA 94043
                            415/336-5991