Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ames!ncar!tank!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!uxg.cso.uiuc.edu!uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!hirchert From: hirchert@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran Subject: Re: Fortran 88 Message-ID: <50500081@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> Date: 20 Oct 88 17:02:00 GMT References: <2045@unmvax.unm.edu> Lines: 205 Nf-ID: #R:unmvax.unm.edu:2045:uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:50500081:000:11926 Nf-From: uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!hirchert Oct 20 12:02:00 1988 Presley Simith(psmith@mozart.uucp) writes: >I don't believe that the European's public comment represent the consumer >viewpoint any more than the U.S. public comments represents the consumer >viewpoint. What are the facts... >1. The Europeans were invited to a series of "FORTRAN Forums." These >Forums presented the positive side of the FORTRAN 8x standard and pumped >up the users to respond to "get the standard out...without delay." There >are many of these comments in the European response. In fact, I could >list the particular comment numbers here, but I will not. and, as you note later, most U.S. commenters got their information from presentations made by vendors opposed to the draft. Because of ISO rules, the European presentations were allowed to give attendees copies of the draft. Because of X3/CBEMA rules, attendees of U.S. presentations had to order theirs from Global Engineering. Many either chose not to because of cost or received their copies from Global Engineering so late that they did not have time to adequately review them, so they simply echoed what was presented to them. (I, too, could list particular comment numbers.) Do you really to argue that people that had copies of the draft are less representative than those who did not? > ... I don't believe these Forums discussed that FORTRAN 8x >is actually bigger than Ada, The measures that call Fortran 8x bigger than Ada also call FORTRAN 77 about the same size as Ada. I find such measures less than convincing. > that with depedent compilation, compilers >will run much slower, IMHO, anyone who writes a compiler that is slower because of dependent compilation is probably less than competent. I have access to a number of compilers and assemblers with similar features, and every one of them runs substantially faster with these features used than without them. (More subjectively, I find there performance when these features are not used to be comparable to that of processors that didn't have the features in the first place.) > and that implementation of some of the new >constructs of FORTRAN 8x would cause major compiler efforts because >they don't fit really well with the old FORTRAN construncts. This is one of those generalizations I keep hearing without supporting specifics. Which features do you have in mind? How is it that they don't fit with the old constructs? How will this cause major compiler efforts? (The major compiler effort that is most obvious to me is the optimization of array expression evaluation, but most of the people I know opposed to the Fortran 8x draft still support the array language.) > I'll bet >that not a one of these Forums discussed the amount of time it took >to get FORTRAN 77 implemented on the majority of the machines in the >world and how much more complex FORTRAN 8x is to implement. and I'll bet that the U.S. presentations didn't talk about how unrepresentative it is to consider the implementation time for many of those FORTRAN 77 implementations. (Many vendors took FORTRAN 77 as an opportunity to write new compilers based on new compiler technology (e.g., writing in HLL's rather than assembler, using common back-ends for code generation, using automatically generated parsers, etc. On the other hand, vendors seem inclined to implement Fortran 8x as extensions to their existing products. Indeed, many have already implemented large parts of 8x in precisely this manner.) >2. In the U.S. various groups received a more balanced set of >information. Presentations presented the new features, benefits >of each, and the drawbacks of each. Discussions did not center >around the "beauty" of the "modern FORTRAN" language, but around >how it would help the user and how it would hurt the user. In >the U.S. we also discussed how it would be more complex for an >engineer to pick up this 8x language quickly (one would need a >better computer science background...) and issues of sustaining >programs that were created with a mixture of FORTRAN 77 and >FORTRAN 8x constructs... My impression of many of the U.S. presentations is that they presented minor "straw man" benefits of many of the new features (ignoring benefits I would consider far more important), and then attacked them with "facts" that I find highly questionable. In my experience, the measure of a balanced presentation is that both sides think it was biased towards the other side. I don't see that the U.S. presentations met this criterion any better than the European presentations. (I.e., presentations on both sides of the Atlantic tended to reflect the biases of the presenters.) >In Europe, many of the presenters of the Forums were users that >were in favor of making FORTRAN a "modern language" that would >"compete" with other languages like Ada and Pascal. >In the U.S. most presentations were made by the Vendors. The >ones that must support the FORTRAN user base and provide quality >products for their use. It seems strange that the major >vendors: IBM, DEC, and UNISYS all said "NO" to FORTRAN 8x. >Has anyone really looked at the why? I sure have. I happen not to agree with many of their technical arguments and assertions. (Unfortunately, for two of the above three, I find political or tactical motives to be a better predictor of their positions than technical considerations. I still listen to their technical arguments carefully, but I take them with a grain of salt, especially when they involve unsupported assertions.) > It's spelled out in their >ballot comments on FORTRAN 8x, but many tend to ignore those >and claim that the vendors just don't want to implement a >new FORTRAN. Take a look at those ballot comments... >>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. >Your are right, the hardest opposition is coming from the vendors. >They believe that FORTRAN 8x is too big, too complex, has too many >"neat" things that are not needed or wanted by their user base. >They also understand that it will take years to produce quality >FORTRAN compilers for a standard this complex. There is substantial disagreement about what the user base wants and needs; it depends a lot on how you ask the question and how you interpret the answer. Is it better to wait 5 years for a compiler with all the features you want or to get some of them in 3 years and then wait another 10 years for the rest (if your're lucky)? If you are certain you don't really need the features in the second batch, 3 years is clearly better than 5. If you are certain you need features in the second batch, 5 years is clearly a lot better than 13. If you're uncertain, you'll have to judge for yourself. >It's real simple. If you don't get the vendors to sign up to >producing compilers and supporting those compilers, NO new standard >will be successful. It's ALGOL 68 again. A beautiful language >that none of the major vendors implemented. That could have a >lot to do with why we are still programming in FORTRAN and not >ALGOL 68. Then again, the fact that no existing programs would run in the new language may have had something to do with why there wasn't enough demand to get the major vendors to do good implementations of Algol 68. (Several of the major vendors did implementations, but typically they weren't very impressive.) Fortran 8x is designed to support the existing base of programs as well as offer new features to the Fortran community. >The other problem with this statement is that "five people on X3J3" >put together this ISO/WG5 document from documents that had NOT been >accepted by X3J3 at the last X3J3 meeting as being acceptable for a base >document for the new FORTRAN standard. In fact, the delegation from X3J3 >to the WG5 meeting was directed by X3J3 NOT to support this document >as a base for the new FORTRAN standard. That's not the way I remember it. First of all, there was no "X3J3 delegation". X3J3 instructed the U.S. delegation, all of whose members were also members of X3J3. X3J3 had no authority to instruct those X3J3 members who were part of non-U.S. delegations. Second, the instruction was not to present the ABMSW plan and to avoid a situation in which WG5 took the job of producing the international standard away from X3J3. As I read the meeting reports, these instructions were followed. The ABMSW plan was presented by a member of one of the other delegations, and WG5 left the job of producing the international standard in X3J3's hands but gave X3J3 more explicit instructions about what it wants the international standard to contain. The ball is now in X3J3's court to decide whether there can be one standard for both ISO and ANSI. > And now "five people on >X3J3" are putting this document, that was rejected at the last X3J3 >meeting, into final form. I don't believe this "five people on X3J3" >have been operating on the instructions of X3J3 to produce this document. >From the votes at the last X3J3 meeting and the direction from X3, it >is unclear that X3J3 or X3 would authorize this work. Come on now. X3J3 members are free, as individuals, to work on whatever they choose. It didn't X3J3 or X3 authorization for you and I to produce these Usenet articles. Given the position of WG5, it is not unreasonable for these people to do work to show X3J3 what an implememtation of the WG5 instructions might look like. What, if anything, X3J3 does with this work is another issue entirely. That is where X3J3 votes, X3 authorizations, etc. come into play. >One other thing to note. ANY document given to any ISO/SC/WG organization >must be passed throughper the procedures sified in the SD-2. up, p >If this document is not processed properly, major internation >problems may result. Maybe, and then again, maybe not. The Hague agreement is no longer in effect, so ISO standards no longer have to be developed by national standards bodies. Working documents of committees following ANSI procedures are required to be in the public domain (except for the standard itself). If X3J3 were to produce a working document reflecting WG5's instructions, X3J3 might not be able to "give" it to WG5, but there would be nothing wrong with WG5 "taking" it as the basis for an ISO standard. (Having said this, let me also say that I would prefer that this not be the way things happen.) Finally, let me make a couple of comments not directly in response to Presley's. In the U.S., the trade press has tended to cover Fortran standardization only when X3J3 produced a draft or report or when X3J3 had major internal disagreements. In Europe, on the other hand, there has been a great deal of continuing coverage. Also, most of the ISO delegates have been involved in Fortran standardization for many years, while a large part of the X3J3 membership (especially among those opposed to the Fortran 8x draft) who joined within the last couple of years. Is it possible then that the greater acceptance of the Fortran 8x draft outside the U.S. (and by WG5, in particular) might be a result of long-term familiarity with its contents, reducing the "fear of the unknown" factor and providing a greater opportunity to assess and appreciate the benefits as well as the costs of the new features. Regardless of its cause, I think we have to deal with WG5's position as it is. Trying to ignore it by characterizing it as unimportant or unrepresentative is just as much a cop out as ignoring the negative comments from the U.S. Kurt W. Hirchert hirchert@ncsa.uiuc.edu National Center for Supercomputing Applications