Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!haven!umbc3!mbph!hybl
From: hybl@mbph.UUCP (Albert Hybl  Dept of Biophysics  SM)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: An exercise in futility
Keywords: Divine_protection dispose_of_DISPOSE
Message-ID: <586@mbph.UUCP>
Date: 10 Jan 89 06:36:19 GMT
Organization: University of Maryland, School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201
Lines: 39


In message <389@loligo.cc.fsu.edu> mccalpin@loligo.cc.fsu.edu
(John McCalpin, Supercomputer Computations Research Institute) writes:
> God help us all if it became illegal to have extensions to Fortran!

God protect us from the extension writers!  What is the logic or
the compelling urgency for:

      CLOSE(...,DISPOSE='SAVE')      ?

It's in the **X blue book.  You can substitute DISPOSE for the
standard word STATUS and the synonym SAVE in place of the standard
word KEEP.  True this nonsense is easily filtered out by using an
editor.  As long as I need to use an editor, perhaps I should
distribute my programs containing control loop written as:
     
      Do_kola 20 J=1,399     !  Do_kola means "go in circles"
        Do_kola block
   20 konec                  !  "End" the do_kola loop

The **X vendor example is saying 'more power to you.'  If
they can do it, so can I!  We can all personalize our source
code!  Why bother with a standards effort at all?

Most fortran programmers probably never hear of the American
National Standards Institute, inc. or ANSI X3.9-1978; they
learn to use fortran from their vendor's Language Reference
Manual.  They work under the delusion that they are using
a "STANDARD" language thinking that they are producing "PORTABLE"
code so long as it compiles without errors.  Little do they know
that it is an exercise in futility.

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Albert Hybl, PhD.              Office UUCP: uunet!mimsy!mbph!hybl
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