Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!im4u!milano!lad-shrike!ut-emx!chpf127
From: chpf127@ut-emx.UUCP (J. Eaton)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Any Good ForTran Reference Manuals?
Message-ID: <1650@ut-emx.UUCP>
Date: 8 Apr 88 22:04:04 GMT
References: <2138@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu>
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
Lines: 36
Summary: Effective Fortran 77, Michael Metcalf

In article <2138@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu>, seitz@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Matthew Eric Seitz) writes:
> 
> 	I'm having difficulty locating a good ForTran reference manual.
> I've found plenty of ForTran textbooks and cookbooks of routines written
> in ForTran, but no reference manuals.  Is there a good manual that
> covers standard ForTran 77 ( not a particular implementation )?
> 
> 					Matthew Seitz
> 					seitz@cory.berkeley.edu

I have found the following to be a very good reference text.

  Effective Fortran 77
  Michael Metcalf
  Oxford University Press, 1985
  ISBN 0-19-853709

He gives a short but fairly complete summary of the language followed by
chapters on portability, style, program design, efficiency, testing, and
documentation.

Things I like about the book include:

  o It stresses the importance of writing standard, portable code.
  o It stresses writing code which other people can read.
  o It contains none of the usual textbook junk (i.e. this is why
    we use do loops, this is what if statements are for, etc.).


J. Eaton
Department of Chemical Engineering
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas

Disclaimer:  My employer doesn't even know I'm speaking, but if he did, 
             he'd want you to know that I'm not speaking for him.