Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!rutgers!bellcore!tness7!texbell!killer!convex!mozart!psmith From: psmith@mozart.uucp (Presley Smith) Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran Subject: FORTRAN 88 Summary: Reply to Kurt Hirchert Message-ID: <669@convex.UUCP> Date: 24 Oct 88 02:55:53 GMT Sender: news@convex.UUCP Reply-To: psmith@convex.com (Presley Smith) Distribution: comp.lang.fortran Organization: Convex Computer Corporation, Richardson, Tx. Lines: 259 In article <50500081@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> hirchert@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes: > >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? Kurt, I certainly agree with you on the Global Engineering issue. We should be able to freely distribute copies of the proposed standard. This has certainly been a problem. There are a couple of issues with the standard process in general: 1. The draft of Fortran 8x is large. Not every user is willing to spend the time to read and digest what is there. It takes a long time to read and even longer to really understand what each new feature really means and how they all hang together. Help was available in the form of a book by Metcalf and Reid called "Fortran 8x Explained." That provided a more compact way to "review" the proposed standard. 2. Let me remind you that there is NO requirement for a person to have read or understand the proposed standard in order to comment on it. And, the ANSI rules do not separate comments from people who have spent hours studying the proposed standard from those who have heard a presentation and either like or don't like some part of the standard and want to express their opinion on the subject. A comment is a comment. 3. Most Fortran users are not compiler writers, and they are not aware of the issues of producing efficient compilers. Some input from the compiler writing community is helpful in understanding those issues. It appears that some do not believe what the compiler writers are saying. Everyone can make their own determination on what to believe and what not to believe. Much of this input is coming from people who have implemented multiple compilers in their lives and in some cases, compilers for multiple different languages including both Fortran and Ada. ( I have removed a portion of Kurt's response which was addressed by Bill Leonard of Harris...) > >>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.) Since we've opened this again, I will make two other comments: 1. I believe the public review comments reflected both the amount of information and the tone of the information presented to the user community either in Europe or the U.S. In the U.S. much of that information was toward the "NO" side and in Europe most of it was toward the "YES" side. I beleive this is clear. The facts also are that 60% of the public comments are negative. The negative comments were not all from the U.S. There were also many positive comments on both sides of the oceans. 2. I still do not believe the statement that Europe knows the views of the user community any better than any the other group. Vendors have a way of providing information to their users and collecting information from their users. Part of the debate has been that of vendors vs users. Large user groups that work with the various vendors are also members of X3J3 and provide input directly to their vendors. Some of these groups are DECUS, Share, Guide, etc. For example, I can show you a resolution that the DECUS user group put together last year at one of their meetings that supported DEC's position on FORTRAN 8x. These user groups are independent organizations from the vendors and are NOT required to support the vendor. May times they pressure the vendor to make changes in products, etc. CONVEX just completed it's user group meeting in October. We had a session on the status of FORTRAN 8x. In discussions with various users, their number one concern is performance and not new language features. May of them are interested in array notation and other parts of the proposed FORTRAN 8x. Some expressed dismay at the way things are going and at the international rif that appears to be forming. I believe that the vendors are in touch with the users and that they listen to their user groups. We certainly listen to our user group and attempt to make changes in our products based on what they say. We also attempt to represent the view of that group to X3J3 in the way we vote. Again, no one can force their opinion on anyone. If you wish not to "agree with many of their technical agruments and assertions", that is certainly your right. It is certainly true that the standards process is also a political process. Witness the result of the WG5 meeting. (Again, some deletion of text...) >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. I am not in favor of delaying the standard. But, it must be done by "due process" as defined in the SD-2. That is the current issue on the table. X3J3 could complete due process and have the new standard back for public review within a few months...if X3J3 would work togehter to make that happen. (More text deleted.) >>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". I did not say the X3J3 delegation. My statment is in the previous paragraph. My statement was "the delegation from X3J3". >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. > Ture. There are other issues in all this. Certainly the ball is back in X3J3's court. And they will have to decide if there will be one or two standards. >> 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. It's true that X3J3 and X3 did not authorize you and I to discuss this on the net. These individuals can do any work on the documents that they want but the effect of the X3 direction to X3J3 is that X3J3 is to process that document according to the SD-2. That means this document must be processed with the proper approvals prior to giving it back to WG5. That document does NOT belong to the 5 individuals that are doing the work on it and they cannot just give it to WG5 or anyone else as they see fit. >>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.) I certainly would not be the one to provide the updated document to WG5 without obtaining the proper approvals first. You'll have a real hard time convincing the ANSI BSR that this document, that is made up mostly of the draft standard that went out earlier for public review, is just another "working paper." >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. > Interrupt need to deal with it directly. But, it cannot take precedence over getting on with producing a standard. That's what the X3 direction said... Get on with producing a standard by the rules in the SD-2 and provide WG5 with a response on when and how... and work with them to get to where we need to be...One standard for the world. I believe we all support that position.