Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!goanna!ok
From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Fortran 90 status
Message-ID: <5862@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au>
Date: 21 May 91 01:15:08 GMT
References: <3246@travis.csd.harris.com> <1991May10.002337.22669@ariel.unm.edu>  <1991May21.113540.783@csc.canterbury.ac.nz>
Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia
Lines: 17

In article <1991May21.113540.783@csc.canterbury.ac.nz>, phys169@csc.canterbury.ac.nz writes:
> Suppose there was a new "standard" every 11 years (say, and change the name of
> Fortran 90 to Fortran 88 for neatness! :-), but a convention amongst compiler
> writers and users about twice as often, so significant worthwhile ideas could
> be discussed and organised - not quite to the point of standardisation - years
> before Fortan 99 (or whatever).

You have to remember that the present Fortran 90 was arrived at in very much
this manner.  To quote the Bible, "this thing was not done in a corner".
The fact that work on Fortran 8X was proceeding was well publicised; anyone
who wanted to find out what was being considered would only have had to go
to a library and scan through a couple of ACM publications (for example) to
find out who to write to.  I saw a draft of 8X back in '87, and that was in
a Prolog company!  Any Fortran compiler writer who is taken by surprise with
Fortran 90 simply hasn't been paying attention.
-- 
There is no such thing as a balanced ecology; ecosystems are chaotic.