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From: jerry@violet.berkeley.edu ( Jerry Berkman )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Fortran 8X
Message-ID: <5778@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Wed, 4-Nov-87 20:53:13 EST
Article-I.D.: jade.5778
Posted: Wed Nov  4 20:53:13 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Nov-87 17:58:40 EST
References: <700@its63b.ed.ac.uk> <6690001@hpclcdb.HP.COM>
Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: jerry@violet.berkeley.edu ( Jerry Berkman )
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 52
Summary: Datamation Article on 8x is misleading.


>The above isn't a commercial - the below is.  Please write the committee with
>your comments, both positive and negative.  Three or four (very) large computer
>vendors are opposing the draft Standard and there have been rumors in print
>(e.g., "Datamation", October 15, 1987) of letter-writing campaigns organized
>by these vendors, presumably through their users' groups.  In other words,
>this is all very political.  Assuming that something you like is safe
>and inevitable since it's in the draft - isn't.  Somehow I doubt that I
>need to encourage the writing of negative letters :-).
>
>						Carl Burch

For those of you who have not yet heard about the standards, don't believe
"Datamation".  The article is confused.  "Datamation" says on page 24
that the 8x standard is:

	'"decrementing" 14 statements (meaning they're candidates for removal
	 in the next FORTRAN standard), including COMMON and EQUIVALENCE,
	 two of the most widely used FORTRAN statements.'

Wrong!  The 8x standard defines three types of undesirable features:

	"deleted features: features to be deleted in 8x,
		no features are in this category.
	"obsolescent" features: features to be reexamined for Fortran 9x
		and possibly deleted in 9x.
		ex: ASSIGN, PAUSE, floating point DO loop indices

	"deprecated" features: features to be reexamined in 9x and possible
		changed to "obsolescent" in 9x and possibly deleted in 10x.
		ex: COMMON, EQUIVALENCE, BLOCK DATA, etc.

While Datamation talks of "decrementing", the standard does not.  And
Datamation has moved up the possible deletion of COMMON and EQUIVALENCE 
from 10x (about 2010?) to 9x (about 1999?).

The article reports the vote was 30 for sending the standard out for
public review, 5 against, and that the negatives included IBM, DEC,
Unisys, and Data General.  I hope this is more accurate than their
summary of "decrementing".  I have heard that some of the committee
voted yes not because they favor the standard, but because they felt
the need for public review to get back in touch with the user
community.

I think it is very important for people to read the standard and comment
upon it.  We are going to have a seminar or series of seminars at U.C.
Berkeley to try to understand the proposed standard before sending in
our comments.

Jerry Berkman, Academic Computing Services
U.C. Berkeley, (415)642-4804
jerry@violet.berkeley.edu