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From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Fortran vs C for computations
Message-ID: <1510@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 15 Sep 88 14:58:46 GMT
References: <391@quintus.UUCP> <3494@lanl.gov>
Organization: SCADA
Lines: 20

In article <3494@lanl.gov>, jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
> Gee, because cpp is not _universally_ applicable to Fortran this means
> Fortran _can't_ be preprocessed at all.  I gave cpp as an example, not
> _only_ possibility.  I still stand by my original statement: Fortran 
> _can_ be preprocessed!  I do it all the time.

Let's spell this out.

There is no standard program available with all Fortran compilers that
does preprocessing of the program (conditional compilation, etc). This
means you can't write and distribute a Fortran version of Emacs, say,
with all the different environments conditionally compiled in. Why not?
because you can't depend on the guy at the other end having it.

And suppose you're not distributing the source. You develop teh thing in
your "personal environment". What happens 2 years down the road when someone
else wants to modify it... woops, we can't find your preprocessor.
-- 
Peter da Silva  `-_-'  Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
"Have you hugged  U  your wolf today?"            peter@ficc.uu.net