Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!boingo.med.jhu.edu!haven.umd.edu!uvaarpa!polaris.cv.nrao.edu!polaris.cv.nrao.edu!bglenden From: bglenden@colobus.cv.nrao.edu (Brian Glendenning) Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran Subject: Re: NAG Fortran 90 announcement Message-ID: Date: 26 Jun 91 07:21:31 GMT References: <15634@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> <26334@lanl.gov> <1991Jun26.003429.6364@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> Sender: news@polaris.cv.nrao.edu (News Manager) Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory Lines: 30 In-Reply-To: vsnyder@jato.jpl.nasa.gov's message of 26 Jun 91 00: 34:29 GMT In article <1991Jun26.003429.6364@jato.jpl.nasa.gov> vsnyder@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Van Snyder) writes: Flameproof suit or none, linked lists in F90 are no more difficult than in C (although sometimes a bit more wordy). F90 looks like a very nice language - but it's not here now, and it might be years (if ever) before good tools are available for it. Another worry is that it might not catch on - i.e. Fortran programmers may stick with F77 and F90 will languish. The NAG compiler lets you start development now, but if F90 doesn't catch on you won't have done yourself any favours (no source level debugging, probably harder to optimize, hard to find programmers...). NAG lets those who are betting on the future of F90 get a head start. Despite the fact that we're a traditional Fortran shop, we recently decided to code a ~50 man year project in something other than Fortran (C++) because the history of the ANSI committee and our reading of the tea leaves doesn't lead us to believe that F90 is safe. This decision was driven by strategic guesses about the next 5 years, F90 would have been a very suitable language. Summary: F90 is a fine language with nice features. I fear that the delays and ANSI making it an alternate Fortran standard may have killed it. Brian -- Brian Glendenning - National Radio Astronomy Observatory bglenden@nrao.edu bglenden@nrao.bitnet (804) 296-0286