bernhold@red8 (David E. Bernholdt) (06/03/91)
In article <RN.1280@mts.ucs.UAlberta.CA> userAKDU@mts.ucs.UAlberta.CA (Al Dunbar) writes: >Seems odd that such simple everyday useful things [proposed new edit > descriptors] would be left changes to the language. out, while they did deal >with much more complex and contentious An anecdote about Fortran formatted I/O and edit descriptors: I first learned Fortran in order to take a proficiency exam for an Intro Fortran course in college. I knew BASIC, Pascal, a little assembler, and my advisor thought I should be able to just study up on Fortran and take the test -- I knew how to program, I just needed to learn the language. I learned Fortran from Katzan's "Fortran77" (highly recommended by the way, though I understand its out of print) in a few days and took the exam having never written a line of real Fortran code in my life. The professor who graded the exams remarked that I was the only one who used list-directed I/O. She thought that was "interesting." I didn't tell her that it was because the formatted I/O had made _no_ sense to me when I read about it. I did well enough to pass the test. Since then, I've done enough Fortran programming to more than make up for any lack when I took that exam. Though I now understand formatted I/O, I still find it one of the most cumbersome and inhibitory (in terms of getting the format you really want) aspects of the language. -- David Bernholdt bernhold@qtp.ufl.edu Quantum Theory Project bernhold@ufpine.bitnet University of Florida Gainesville, FL 32611 904/392 6365
mac@cis.ksu.edu (Myron A. Calhoun) (06/05/91)
In <28908@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> bernhold@red8 (David E. Bernholdt) writes: >In article <RN.1280@mts.ucs.UAlberta.CA> userAKDU@mts.ucs.UAlberta.CA (Al Dunbar) writes: >>Seems odd that such simple everyday useful things [proposed new edit >> descriptors] would be left changes to the language. out, while they did deal >>with much more complex and contentious >An anecdote about Fortran formatted I/O and edit descriptors: [many lines deleted] >.... Though I now understand formatted >I/O, I still find it one of the most cumbersome and inhibitory (in >terms of getting the format you really want) aspects of the language. Am I the only person in the world who thinks FORTRAN's FORMATs are REALLY NICE, especially since they work on both input and output? About the only extant language with better formatting is COBOL (I don't consider PL/1 extant). Pascal's formatting sucks. So does BASIC's "USING" statement. C's "scanf" is not much better. I'll admit that FORTRAN's FORMAT does have an occasional limitation (such as left-justified integers), but it can do almost everything else! --Myron. -- # Myron A. Calhoun, Ph.D. E.E.; Associate Professor (913) 539-4448 home # INTERNET: mac@cis.ksu.edu (129.130.10.2) 532-6350 work # UUCP: ...rutgers!ksuvax1!harry!mac 532-7353 fax # AT&T Mail: attmail!ksuvax1!mac W0PBV @ K0VAY.KS.USA.NA