Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!microsoft!bobal
From: bobal@microsoft.UUCP (Bob Allison)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Fortran 88
Summary: Polemics can be a way of life
Keywords: fortran standards
Message-ID: <1064@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 19 Oct 88 15:46:30 GMT
References: <2045@unmvax.unm.edu>
Reply-To: bobal@microsoft.UUCP (Bob Allison (uunet!microsoft!bobal))
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 68

[Walt wrote in note previous to the one referenced:]
>Two points have been overlooked in the recent discussion of the happenings
>in the wonderful world of Fortran standards:
>
>1.  X3J3 is "tasked" by WG5 of ISO to create the ISO standard.

    This may be true, but it doesn't seem to have any procedural
    significance: witness the X3 direction to X3J3.  Also, the 
    private discussion with an X3 member who asserted that if 
    WG-5 tried to take the current draft and use it without going
    through X3J3 that X3 would move to defend its ownership of the
    document (I guess through copyright) by whatever means are necessary.

>
>2.  There is only one document that is close enough to be a standard
>    in the next five years; it is the one favored by ISO/WG5.  So the choices
>    are:  a) the same ISO and ANSI standard or
>    b) an ISO standard and _no_ ANSI standard (at least not for several years).

    I don't buy this for an instant: I don't understand what "could be"
    means, but certainly the draft sent for public review, the original
    FORTRAN 77 text, and dozens of other permutations "could be a standard
    in the next five years".  Given five years (your number above) I believe
    any standard is possible.

>
>Also, from what I have heard, it is quite likely that any ISO standard
>would become a U. S. Federal (FIP) standard whether it is an American
>national standard or not, so vendors wanting to sell to Uncle Sam would
>have to implement it.

    I don't think this is predictable at this time.  The FIPS process is
    completely independent and also has review cycles.  I believe either
    conclusion can be argued with the same confidence (namely, none).

In article <2045@unmvax.unm.edu> brainerd@unmvax.unm.edu (Walt Brainerd) writes:
>Another point I forgot to mention previously (the significance of which
>you can puzzle over for yourself) in response to someone who noted that
>the Europeans seem to represent the consumer viewpoint more than X3J3:
>
>The document favored by ISO/WG5 was put into its final form by five
>people on X3J3 who all represent users; the hardest opposition is
>coming from some of the vendors.

    Well, I find this an over-simplification: there is some pretty strong
    resistance from Boeing, SHARE (the IBM users group), and (starting
    next meeting) DECUS.  There are vendors in favor of the ISO/WG5 document 
    and other users opposed.  This whole users/vendors thing is just jingoism.

    At the last meeting, the document closest to ISO/WG5 went down 
    11-20-7, and 11-24-5 depending on the time of week.  I do not believe
    there were 24 people representing vendors and only 11 representing
    users in the room.

These things are not so clear cut as some would have you believe: I
know that (contrary to the votes of members of the committee from the
same organizations) employees wrote in public review letters against the
draft from Amoco and NCAR, and in favor of the draft from employees of 
Boeing and users of IBM machines.  In the end result, the votes come 
down to who is voting: we have seen organizations change votes when a 
new person came along from that organization.  This is especially
true of "vendors" (so I guess the companies' brainwashing methods have
not been perfected yet ;-).

Bob Allison
PS.  I was gone for a week, so I only saw two responses to my note about
8X pointers (one about double colons, one about "=>" being only one character
different from "=").  Any I missed?  Everyone pretty happy with this
proposal?