Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!hc!lanl!a!alm
From: alm@a.lanl.gov (Alex Marusak)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: yes vs. no on f8x
Message-ID: <883@a.lanl.gov>
Date: 20 Apr 89 18:01:07 GMT
References: <24130@beta.lanl.gov> <50500125@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 28

In article <50500125@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>, hirchert@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
% 
% Doug McDonald (mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu) writes
% 
% >As to your second sentence first, it appears that right now, after some
% >changes, that it is proposed to keep all of Fortran 77. HOWEVER,
% >in the draft that was sent out for comment, it was proposed that
% >all of Fortran 77 would be in F8x BUT that one would have had to
% >assume that a long list of things (like common, equivalence, and
% >ordinary do loops(!)) would disappear from F9x. This would have meant that
% >. . .
% AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!  This simply isn't true!  Go reread the
% public comment draft!  If the rules in it are followed, the only features which
% could possibly be removed from F9x are the features labeled as being
% "obsolescent".  That list is quite short!  In particular, it does not
% . . .
Actually, Kurt, Mr. McDonald is quite right.  The point has been made over
and over that Fortran users planning for the long haul would have to phase
out the use of obsolescent AND deprecated features.  Your little nicety
on 'what can be stripped from 9x' is technically true, but it doesn't
change the stated concern one iota.

% Please, people!  If you're going to complain about what's been proposed for
% Fortran 8x, try to get your facts straight and only complain about things that
% are actually there.

True.  A little more understanding on our (X3J3's) part as to what the
comments are saying wouldn't hurt either.