Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!oliveb!sun!chiba!khb
From: khb%chiba@Sun.COM (Keith Bierman - Sun Tactical Engineering)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: An exercise in futility
Keywords: Divine_protection dispose_of_DISPOSE
Message-ID: <84617@sun.uucp>
Date: 10 Jan 89 17:44:36 GMT
References: <586@mbph.UUCP>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: khb@sun.UUCP (Keith Bierman - Sun Tactical Engineering)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 35

In article <586@mbph.UUCP> hybl@mbph.UUCP (Albert Hybl  Dept of Biophysics  SM) writes:

>    examples of vendor extentions deleted
>
>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?

Because a non-trivial number of programmers do care, and do write
portable code.

>
>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.

Some vendors (specifically DEC which you are using as an example)
plainly mark what is standard and what is not. If you code using the
blue words in the dec manual your code is not standard complying.
Furthermore there is always the /ANSI options (which does let a bit
of offending code by, but not much).

There are USEFUL vendor extensions which when used with caution can be
employed to get orders of magnitude speedup or readability
enhancement. 

Given your mindset, you really should check into getting an Ada
compiler. 

Keith H. Bierman
It's Not My Fault ---- I Voted for Bill & Opus