Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!seibel
From: seibel@cgl.ucsf.edu (George Seibel)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Character aliases are Satanic extensions
Message-ID: <11596@cgl.ucsf.EDU>
Date: 13 May 89 06:48:48 GMT
References: <592@mbph.UUCP> <177@csun1.UUCP> <594@mbph.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@cgl.ucsf.edu
Reply-To: seibel@hegel.mmwb.ucsf.edu (George Seibel)
Organization: Dept. of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, UCSF
Lines: 53

In article <594@mbph.UUCP> hybl@mbph.UUCP (Albert Hybl  Dept of Biophysics  SM) writes:

]From article <177@csun1.UUCP> by weyrich@csun1.UUCP (Orville Weyrich):
]> What you describe was correct FORTRAN-66, ...  FORTRAN is a permissive
]> standard that stresses what is required to be supported. It does not
]> prohibit the support of extensions or anachronisms as long as they do
]> not directly conflict with required features.
]
][the following] compiles without diagnostics on a VAX! :-(
]
]      double precision distance, time, speed
]      time='2_hours'
]      speed='60_mph'
]      distance=time*speed
]      print *, distance
]      end
]
]The programs I am porting bear dates 1984-1986 not 1974.  Perusal
]of the colorful VAX VMS FORTRAN Language Reference Manual divulges
]a description _with examples_ on how to use the Satanic character
]aliases.  The description is not relegated to an appendix nor does
]it discourage the continued use of such coding.  The implementors
]of the VAX VMS FORTRAN should be excoriated for promoting the
]perpetuation of such anachronistic coding practices.

Well, Al, I gotta come clean here.   The Satanic program came out
of our lab here at UCSF.   Quite some while ago, I suggested in a
group meeting that we dump the Hollerith stuff.   The response was
(a now infamous quote) "Hollerith was a great man.  He should be
honored".   Along with some laughter.   What this really meant was
that no one felt like going through 40000 lines of code and doing it.
Some of the code dates back to the FORTRAN 66 days, and that's why it
looks the way it does.   The '84-86 dates were just revisions.

I fully agree with you that the DEC VMS Fortran compiler is responsible
for some real porting headaches.  When the orange manual actively
encourages the use of extensions, many of which have functional ANSI
equivalents, it is pretty clear to me that DEC hopes to keep you as
a customer.   Nearly ALL compilers are extended in a variety of subtle
ways.  This is understandably done because quite frankly the market demands
it.   I do wish, however that vendors would clearly mark their language
manuals to indicate which language constructs are nonstandard.  Some
vendors (e.g. Cray) do this.  This to me is an indication of the high
ethical standard of that firm.

BTW, if you're willing to wait a couple of months, I'll be releasing
a new revision of Amber with avoidable machine dependencies removed.
The unavoidable ones will be well isolated.  The remaining Hollerith
data will be of a form that most compilers will swallow (no guarantees,
though - I don't get paid for this).
  And yes, I'll even fix the Satanic Nucgen :^)

George Seibel, UCSF