Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!itsgw!steinmetz!uunet!convex!mozart!metzger
From: metzger@mozart.uucp (Bob Metzger)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Fortran 88
Keywords: fortran standards
Message-ID: <660@convex.UUCP>
Date: 19 Oct 88 13:39:52 GMT
References: <2045@unmvax.unm.edu> <657@convex.UUCP>
Sender: news@convex.UUCP
Reply-To: metzger@mozart.UUCP (Bob Metzger)
Distribution: comp.lang.fortran
Organization: Convex Computer Corporation, Richardson, Tx.
Lines: 41

DISCLAIMER:  These are my opinions, not my employers.  


I found Mr. Brainerd's most recent postings highly amusing.
He seems to think that dragging the FORTRAN 8x discussions down to
the level of the US Presidential elections is his only hope of
rescuing his draft (he is the editor of the FORTRAN 8x draft
that the U.S. public comment rejected.)

There's a future for you in political advertising, Mr. Brainerd.
For example, this assertion that the "Gang of 5" that wrote the 
current draft are "users".   You know as well as I that they are mostly,
like yourself, actually Ph.D. computer scientists.  I think it is safe
to assert that if there is any class of programmers who are not typical
FORTRAN users, it is Ph.D. computer scientists.   Engineers and
physical scientists are the real FORTRAN users.  

Or how about the assertion that it is the vendors, not the users,
who oppose your draft, Mr Brainerd?  How do you explain the fact that
the revision proposal that got the largest number of votes in August,
and is the one that the majority of the vendors support, is written by 
a mathematician from Boeing?  A real non-computer scientist who doesn't
work for a computer vendor.  Sounds like a real FORTRAN user to me!

And why do you think that all those vendors oppose the current draft,
Mr. Brainerd? Because the vendors employ people who have actually
implemented production quality compilers, and who know that this language,
which is certainly not FORTRAN, is a recipe for disaster.

I realize that you doubt the value of the hundreds of years of compiler
development experience represented by the nearly 2 dozen organizations
that oppose the current draft.  Compiler experts from such fierce competitors
as IBM and DEC and UNISYS all agree that the current draft is not acceptable.
The FORTRAN user community would do well to realize that such concerted
opposition could only occur if there were real technical flaws in the
current draft.

Yes, there's a future for you in political advertising, Mr. Brainerd.


DISCLAIMER:  These are my opinions, not my employers.