Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!convex!mozart!psmith
From: psmith@mozart.uucp (Presley Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Fortran 88
Summary: Additional X3J3 information
Keywords: fortran standards
Message-ID: <666@convex.UUCP>
Date: 22 Oct 88 13:52:31 GMT
References: <2060@unmvax.unm.edu>
Sender: news@convex.UUCP
Reply-To: psmith@convex.com  (Presley Smith)
Organization: Convex Computer Corporation, Richardson, Tx.
Lines: 178

In article <2060@unmvax.unm.edu> brainerd@unmvax.unm.edu (Walt Brainerd) writes:
>
>The purpose of an ANSI technical committee such as X3J3 is to discuss
>and resolve technical issues.  Some of you reading this column must be
>sensing how frustrating it is to conduct a rational technical argument
>with people like the folks from Convex, who say that
>
>a)  the proposed Fortran 88 is no good because Ken Kennedy, a Ph. D.
>    computer scientist, says it isn't.
>
>b)  the proposed Fortran 88 is no good because some Ph. D. computer scientists
>    had a hand in developing it.
>
>Well, if you're not too logical, then maybe you should be politically astute;
>one of the officers of X3J3 is the Editor, but it is not Walt Brainerd
>(as P Smith, a member of X3J3, seems to think) and never has been!

Walt, I hate to contradict you, but I know full well who the editor is.  
I also don't control the people at CONVEX that want to express their OWN 
opinions which may NOT be my opinions and NOT the opinions of the company. 
In fact, Bob put a disclaimer on his article that the opinions were his
own, and they certainly do not necessarily represent my views.

I believe if you look at the series of information that is on the net,
that I have NEVER said anything about Ken Kennedy or about PHD computer
scientists.   I also am NOT asking others to write messages.  I'm prepared
to take full responsibility for my message and for how politically astute
I may be, but not for the personal responses of others.  They have a right
to their own opinions, just as you have a right to yours.   I will continue
to request that eveyone express their opinions whether they agree with 
mine or not.

>
>Some other basic facts of recent postings need to be corrected:
>
>1.  My first language (other than an assembler) was Fortran,
>    first learned in 1960, before Pascal and C were invented, I believe.
>    That does not mean that the good ideas from these more recent languages
>    should not be borrowed.
>
>2.  The document discussed by ISO/WG5 was the work of X3J3 over the last
>    ten years.  The "five" mentioned only served as a group to modify
>    the draft standard to simplify it as requested by many commenters.
>    For example, ALIAS, IDENTIFY, RANGE, internal procedures, and
>    host association were removed.
>

Okay, let's put some more facts on the table.  The "document discussed" at
the ISO/WG5 meeting was a document "based" on the work of X3J3 over the 
last ten years.   That final document was actually produced by YOU in a hotel
room in Jackson during the last X3J3 meeting.  That document as modified
was NOT voted on in the Jackson meeting and was NOT approved by X3J3
to be submitted to ISO or WG5.   The SD-2 is very clear that documents
to be submitted to the international groups are to be passed through 
the X3 Secretariat prior to being forwarded to the international group.
From the votes at the X3J3 meeting in Jackson, it is clear that this 
document does not have the 2/3 approval of the X3J3 committee required
to make this document the base for a revision to the proposed 8x standard.

WG5 in resolution 2 requested that DP1539 be modified with the changes 
specified in that resolution.   DP1539 is S8.104 which was the draft 
proposed standard that was sent out for public review.  

Since that time, you, Walt, have produced S8.108, S8.109, and are in 
the process of producing S8.110 which supposedly will be S8.104 plus
what WG5 requested.   My problem is with the process and not just 
with the document.  

  1.  The full X3J3 committee has NOT been approving the changes going
      into S8.110 prior to their being added or changed.  There are 
      changes that have been made by a small group of people that 
      have not been approved by the whole committee that are going 
      into this document.   WG5 saw changes that had NOT been approved
      by X3J3.

  2.  The members of X3J3 has no way of actually telling what changes
      have been other than to read this 400 page document and attempt by
      hand to compare it's current contents to the S8.104.   I am 
      not alone in my skepticism on this point.

  3.  The debate in the committee in the last two meetings has been on
      what document to start with as a base document for the changes 
      required by the public review comments.   Most members have been
      looking at functionality that is going to be removed or added 
      and not at the details of "is the proposed document technically
      correct?"   X3J3 is still trying to decide what functionality
      will be in or out of the proposed standard.  

      And we are being asked by WG5 to approve and transmit a new 
      proposal in a two month time period that has not been properly
      reviewed for technical accuracy...and that proposal will 
      probably become the new ISO standard.   I'm sorry, Walt, but 
      I don't buy it.  

      That's why X3 has now directed X3J3 to follow the rules.

  3.  Using a document as a base that is NOT DP1539 is NOT following 
      the instructions of WG5 in resolution P2.   I'd like to see
      the change record for document S8.110 that shows that it 
      started with DP1539 and changed the following lines to whatever
      and produced S8.110.   Can you produce such a document?  If
      WG5 asks for such a record, can you show compliance?

>Some differences of opinion:
>
>1.  I think "computer scientists" with vast experience with Fortran and
>    scientific computing, even if they ARE educated, are at least as
>    qualified to design Fortran as compiler writers.  Acutally, I was also
>    hoping that my compilers would be written by people knowledgable in the
>    field of computer science.  The issue of proper representation reminds
>    me of the U.S. senator that, when accused of being quite mediocre, said
>    that mediocre people need representation.  Users need all of the
>    representation they can get and some of that representation
>    should be through people who understand language design issues.
>    Some of it, inevitably, will be mediocre.
>
>2.  Hey, folks, we're approaching the 1990s.  Technology is getting more
>    complicated, and so are compilers (along with the technology available
>    to write them), but anyone who thinks Fortran 88 is as complicated as
>    Ada has been ingesting brain-damaging substances.

It's interesting that there is a chart in the IBM ballot response that
compares FORTRAN 8x to Ada... pull it out and take a look.  

>I appreciate Bob Allison's sentiment to try to downplay polarization
>of vendors and users.  Of course there are exceptions on both sides,
>but I stick by my statement (with which P Smith of Convex agrees) that
>the hard objections come from some vendors (and the hard push for it
>is coming from some of those representing users).  It didn't used to be this way
>when most members contributed toward making the proposed standard the best
>they could, whatever their technical positions were.
>

P Smith certainly agrees that  "NO" votes on the X3J3 committee for 
the FORTRAN 8x standard have been from vendors.  But a users such as
Los Alamos, Boeing, and others voted "NO" also. 

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 was negative and that was not
 all from the U.S.   There were 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.