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From: link@sag4.ssl.berkeley.edu (Richard Link)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran,comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: F77 Compilers for MS-DOS PC's
Keywords: ms-dos fortran f77
Message-ID: <13633@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 26 Aug 88 07:57:33 GMT
References: <184@limbic.UUCP> <102@simsdevl.UUCP>
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Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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In article <102@simsdevl.UUCP> dandc@simsdevl.UUCP (Dan DeClerck) writes:
>In article <184@limbic.UUCP> gil@limbic.UUCP (Gil Kloepfer Jr.) writes:
>>One company I do work for is looking for a F77 compiler for a PC / PC clone.
>>I would appreciate any suggestions from the net as to compilers they have
>>used and liked, or compilers to avoid.
>>
>>Specifically, we are looking for a compiler which supports VMS extensions
>>
>I've used Digital Research's F77 compiler 
>I found that it was absolutely horrible. 


I bought Microsoft 3.20 and upgraded to 3.31. Both stink. Neither versions
are ANSI F77. 3.31 is a subset of F77, and has CHARACTER variables, although
does not allow substring operations. Based on my experience with these
versions, I decided not to upgrade to 4.0, which is reputably a full F77.

I found that even within the confines of the ANSI standard, I had great
difficulty in trying to port IBM and VMS compatible source code into
MS Fortran. MS choked on a lot of constructs allowed by both IBM and VMS.

IBM above refers to mainframe compilers, not PC versions.

An interesting anecdote. A colleague of mine, a professor of solid earth
geophysics, bought an early version of the IBM PC, with MS Fortran.
His work involves a lot of Legendre polynomials and matrix math.
After weeks of frustration, he finally proved conclusively that his 
particular version of MS Fortran had a serious bug. He read in a 
4 x 4 array, and then simply printed it out. The subscripts (array
locations) were all permuted, rendering the compiler totally useless.
He took the IBM + MS Fortran back to the store, and ordered a MicroVAX.

I have not used Lahey Fortran, although I have read some good things about
it. However, I am not willing to spend the $$ to find out conclusively.
In my opinion, PC version of Fortran are not particularly good. There is
a fundamental incompatibility of Fortran COMMON block structures with
the 64K segment limit of Intel chips. 

I cannot believe I am saying the following: if you want to program a PC,
use C!

I think Microsoft has devoted their corporate effort to C and MASM, with
QuickBasic devoted to the home market. Don't look for the same level of
effort in MS C & Fortran.

These are my own, not particularly well-informed, opinions.

Dr. Richard Link
Space Sciences Laboratory
University of California, Berkeley
link@ssl.berkeley.edu