dd@beta.lanl.gov (Dan Davison) (04/05/89)
In the March 20 Digital News there is an article on pg.8 about the new standard and relations with WG5. " [X3J3 and WG5]...have agreed on content for a draft proposal, and members of each are voting on documents that are essentially the same..." "However, several members of the ANSI X3J3 committee said that their group had capitulated to pressure from its parent committee, ANSI X3, to stay in line with the ISO group, and that the new draft proposal essentially ignores the public comments that killed the last draft proposal". If I feel cheated from having spent time reading the draft standard and writing comments, what about all the folks who put in so much time and effort? Whose standard is this anyway? Oh well. The article reported that "The language has been simplified; identify [sic] and arrange [sic] [????] statements, and depreciation of features have been removed; ...". The pointer attribute, allocatable arrays and non-advancing I/O were also mentioned as being added. dan davison/theoretical biology/t-10 ms k710/los alamos national laboratory los alamos, nm 875545/dd@lanl.gov (arpa)/dd@lanl.uucp(new)/..cmcl2!lanl!dd If aliens were doing to the Earth what we're doing to the Earth, we'd be a war.
khb@fatcity.Sun.COM (Keith Bierman Sun Tactical Engineering) (04/06/89)
In article <24032@beta.lanl.gov> dd@beta.lanl.gov (Dan Davison) writes: >In the March 20 Digital News there is an article on pg.8 about the new >standard and relations with WG5. > >" [X3J3 and WG5]...have agreed on content for a draft proposal, and >members of each are voting on documents that are essentially the same..." > >"However, several members of the ANSI X3J3 committee said that their >group had capitulated to pressure from its parent committee, >ANSI X3, to stay in line with the ISO group, and that the new >draft proposal essentially ignores the public comments that >killed the last draft proposal". It is true that some members don't like the WG5 pressure. It must be remembered that x3j3 was given the charter to develop the text for ISO in addition to ANSI and that the committee accepted that mandate. Furthermore the public comment has NOT been ignored. Every letter was read. Every proposal no matter how ill-informed was dealt with by the appropriate subcommittee. Offical responses are still being crafted. > >If I feel cheated from having spent time reading the draft standard and >writing comments, what about all the folks who put in so much time and >effort? You shouldn't feel cheated. The committee may not end up accepting your proposed changes, but they were considered. > >Whose standard is this anyway? Ours (the folks who rely on fortran). There is much to be gained by having a single fortran. ISO recognized this, and accepted the ANSI document in 1978. This time around the European community spent a huge amount of effort (due to rules differences, they were able to better educate their user community) and crafted a set of well thought out proposals. They accepted the american committee's work for about 90% of the language, and felt that the 10% or so that they felt strongly about should go their way. There are many who think that this is not unreasonable....which is why their propsals were accepted by a majority of the voting memembers in attendance in the Palo Alto meeting. Things are looking good for acceptance of the standard. Keith H. Bierman It's Not My Fault ---- I Voted for Bill & Opus
dd@beta.lanl.gov (Dan Davison) (04/07/89)
In article <97753@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>, khb@fatcity.Sun.COM (Keith Bierman Sun Tactical Engineering) writes: > It is true that some members don't like the WG5 pressure. It must be > remembered that x3j3 was given the charter to develop the text for ISO > in addition to ANSI and that the committee accepted that mandate. Then perhaps if the committee had concentrated on improving Fortran instead of molding it in the image of a CS language product none of the travail would have been necessary. > Furthermore the public comment has NOT been ignored. Every letter was > read. Every proposal no matter how ill-informed was dealt with by the > appropriate subcommittee. Offical responses are still being crafted. True, that wasn't my point. WG5 appears to have decided the content, not the US public comment. There's an important difference here. Why should anyone go to the trouble of reading the new draft when it comes out? Our opinions won't change anything, apparently > You shouldn't feel cheated. The committee may not end up accepting > your proposed changes, but they were considered. Again, you appear to have missed my point. > >Whose standard is this anyway? > Ours (the folks who rely on fortran). There is much to be gained by > having a single fortran. ISO recognized this, and accepted the ANSI > document in 1978. This time around the European community spent a huge > amount of effort (due to rules differences, they were able to better > educate their user community) and crafted a set of well thought out > proposals. They accepted the american committee's work for about 90% > of the language, and felt that the 10% or so that they felt strongly > about should go their way. There are many who think that this is not > unreasonable....which is why their propsals were accepted by a > majority of the voting memembers in attendance in the Palo Alto meeting. > > Things are looking good for acceptance of the standard. > Keith H. Bierman Not to me. I will read the proposed standard with a fairly open mind, but it appears that we will get the European standard instead of a US standard. I must confess a great deal of frustration with the committee. It would seem fairly straightforward to take Fortran '77, add pointers, standard bit operations, a structure or record data type, DO WHILE, REPEAT UNTIL, fix up the I/O facilities (such as non-advancing I/O), intelligent DO loop handling (EXIT <level>), a CASE statement, labels on the CASE, DO, and IF statements. Vectorization, perhaps, would also be a good addition. Instead, we have something that looks like a collision between Ada and Pascal in a dark alley. It also looks like some of the committee are frustrated language developers who don't like Fortran. I have a very bad feeling about this and I don't like it. Let Fortran be Fortran. dan davison/theoretical biology/t-10 ms k710/los alamos national laboratory los alamos, nm 875545/dd@lanl.gov (arpa)/dd@lanl.uucp(new)/..cmcl2!lanl!dd "The emperor is not as forgiving as I am" -- D. Vader
shapiro@rb-dc1.UUCP (Mike Shapiro) (04/08/89)
In article <24066@beta.lanl.gov> dd@beta.lanl.gov (Dan Davison) writes: ... nearly all deleted ... >I have a very bad feeling about this and I don't like it. Let Fortran >be Fortran. But which Fortran should we let be Fortran? The one with the PAUSE that actually stopped the machine? The one with the READ INPUT TAPE statement? The one with ENCODE and DECODE statements? The one with NAMELIST? (QUIZ: Which of these is in Fortran-8x?) I recall that when the FORTRAN 77 standard appeared, so did most of the same arguments. Who would need all those extra features like comments beginning with an asterisk or an IF/THEN/ELSEIF/ENDIF statement block? FORTRAN 66 (or FORTRAN IV or FORTRAN ??) was enough! And who would ever bother implementing the whole language? We could just stick to the left-hand pages of the standard, which defined the subset. How many FORTRAN 77 Subset compilers do you see on the market these days? Each of the times FORTRAN has been standardized, a subset was also specified in the standard (a separate standard ANSI X3.10-1966 and left hand pages in ANSI X3.9-1978). I (and several other people) have recommended that the FORTRAN 77 standard be retained as Fortran 8x Subset (or some similar name). And it should be noted that any standard-conforming FORTRAN 77 program will continue to be a standard-conforming Fortran 8x program. Indeed, the most difficult transition task for many people may be remembering to use the correct capitalization rule (as used in this paragraph). A question to anyone who cares: The X3J3 committee continues to use "Fortran 8x" as the working name of the draft proposed standard. WG5 uses "Fortran 88" as its name for the same draft. My preference is to follow the convention of just using the last digits of the year (e.g., COBOL 74), so that if it becomes a standard this year, it would be "Fortran 89" and if it slips to next year, "Fortran 90" and so forth. What is your preference? Why? -- Michael Shapiro, Gould/General Systems Division (soon to be Encore) 15378 Avenue of Science, San Diego, CA 92128 (619)485-0910 UUCP: ...sdcsvax!ncr-sd!rb-dc1!shapiro
khb@fatcity.Sun.COM (fatcity) (04/08/89)
In article <24066@beta.lanl.gov> dd@beta.lanl.gov (Dan Davison) writes: ..... >Then perhaps if the committee had concentrated on improving Fortran >instead of molding it in the image of a CS language product none of the >travail would have been necessary. I suggest you study the last 10 years of meeting notes. It is not a CS language product. It is the result of many "real world engineers and scientsts" crafting a tool to solve their problems. CS types hate the product. > >> Furthermore the public comment has NOT been ignored. Every letter was >> read. Every proposal no matter how ill-informed was dealt with by the >> appropriate subcommittee. Offical responses are still being crafted. > >True, that wasn't my point. WG5 appears to have decided the content, >not the US public comment. There's an important difference here. Why >should anyone go to the trouble of reading the new draft when it comes >out? Our opinions won't change anything, apparently Wrong. The sad fact is that the much of the US public comment was clearly misinformed. People complained about features being deleted (there are NO deletions from x3.9-1978) requesting that features be added that were already in, and etc. Of the comment that was sensible, much was accepted. It should be noted that the informed commentators requested basically what WG5 did. There are bitter arguments about how to "spell" things, but the functionality requested is generally the same. Inasmuch as WG5 "held out" for a very short list of features, in a very large document, it seems quite unreasonable to bitch about WG5 running the show. Also note that you have had over a decade to voice your views. Modulo the misinformed comments, the vast majority of the remaining comment recapitulated long debates on the issues. You may feel slighted because you invested a couple of days in reading the document, and some hours crafting your remarks. But there are many committee members who spent years negotiating the document, and who articulated your (the group you :>) views over a period of months.... >> Things are looking good for acceptance of the standard. >> Keith H. Bierman > >Not to me. I will read the proposed standard with a fairly open mind, >but it appears that we will get the European standard instead of a >US standard. Since we (americans) wrote the document, and continue to do all the technical work, this is simply silly. >>I must confess a great deal of frustration with the committee. It would >seem fairly straightforward to take Fortran '77, add pointers, standard >bit operations, a structure or record data type, DO WHILE, REPEAT UNTIL, >fix up the I/O facilities (such as non-advancing I/O), intelligent DO >loop handling (EXIT <level>), a CASE statement, labels on the CASE, DO, >and IF statements. Vectorization, perhaps, would also be a good >addition. And many of us who use fortran to earn our daily bread, and took the trouble to follow along for the last decade (I only joined as a member reccently) are very, very certain that much more is needed. During the last several YEARS, the committee has tried to remove anything and everything not nailed down. Each feature has a very strong reason for being there, and this was the consensus (via voting) of those who cared enough to be part of the process. If you think you can craft a language which will displace fortran in your spare time good luck. Wirth has tried very hard, and is very good....but he hasn't even managed to displace C, much less fortran. I seriously doubt you will fare better. > >Instead, we have something that looks like a collision between Ada and >Pascal in a dark alley. It also looks like some of the committee are >frustrated language developers who don't like Fortran. No. They do, however, have a larger view. It makes no sense for a scientist to have to worry about how two entities are multiplied. The power of this sort of notion should be obvious from a quick study of linear algebra. The proposed standard will allow me to write code which will be easier to read, port, maintain and tune. This is what I DEMAND from a language for scientific applications. Your proposed f77 hacks do not go anywhere near far enough to solve the problems. > >I have a very bad feeling about this and I don't like it. Let Fortran >be Fortran. It is. It shall be. But it must evolve. ----------- Evolve or die. There is no other choice. Keith H. Bierman It's Not My Fault ---- I Voted for Bill & Opus
jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles) (04/08/89)
From article <442@rb-dc1.UUCP>, by shapiro@rb-dc1.UUCP (Mike Shapiro): > [...] > Subset (or some similar name). And it should be noted that any > standard-conforming FORTRAN 77 program will continue to be a > standard-conforming Fortran 8x program. Indeed, the most difficult > transition task for many people may be remembering to use the correct > capitalization rule (as used in this paragraph). Just for the record, the correct capitalization rule is 'Fortran' not 'FORTRAN'. This is, admittedly, not a very important point, but it does conform to an international agreement (through ISO) for capital- ization of programming languages and features (to which ANSI has agreed). The rule is (simplistically put): if the word term is pronounced then the spelling is with initial capital only; if the word is spelled out verbally then it should be all capitalized in print.
dik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter) (04/09/89)
In article <442@rb-dc1.UUCP> shapiro@rb-dc1.SanDiego.gould.UUCP (Michael Shapiro) writes: > The X3J3 committee continues to use "Fortran 8x" as the working name > of the draft proposed standard. WG5 uses "Fortran 88" as its name for > the same draft. My preference is to follow the convention of just > using the last digits of the year (e.g., COBOL 74), so that if it > becomes a standard this year, it would be "Fortran 89" and if it slips > to next year, "Fortran 90" and so forth. What is your preference? Fortran 88 of course. > Why? Seeing that Fortran 66 became a standard in 1966 and Fortran 77 became a standard in 1978, it would be a logical follow up if Fortran 88 became a standard in 1990. -- dik t. winter, cwi, amsterdam, nederland INTERNET : dik@cwi.nl BITNET/EARN: dik@mcvax
urjlew@ecsvax.UUCP (Rostyk Lewyckyj) (04/11/89)
Mr Shapiro asks us what we would like the new Fortran standard to be called. Well I say ;-): Make it FORTRAN 96. To symbolize two entities X3J3 - WG5 or commitee - users in juxtaposition directly opposite to a loving couple 69. Also it may take up to 1996 to get this off the ground and into working compilers. I still think they should have cleaned up PL/I instead. I want: - literal statement labels - grouping of statements a la DO ... END, which fit nicely into if (cond) then st1 else st2 , to replace st1 & st2. Rather than a similar looking but different semantics of if (cond) then + statements + endif, and the else elseif statements. - multiple statements on a line, and some other PL/I comforts, of course without many of the pains like defaulting to FIXED DECIMAL for parameters, no backspace, no variable FORMAT (run time FORMAT interpreter). This was originally meant as a mailed reply to Mr. Shapiro, but the news return path bounced, so I decided to post. ----------------------------------------------- Reply-To: Rostyslaw Jarema Lewyckyj urjlew@ecsvax.UUCP , urjlew@unc.bitnet or urjlew@tucc.tucc.edu (ARPA,SURA,NSF etc. internet) tel. (919)-962-9107
alm@a.lanl.gov (Alex Marusak) (04/11/89)
References: <24032@beta.lanl.gov> <97753@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <24066@beta.lanl.gov> <98041@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> In article <98041@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>, khb@fatcity.Sun.COM (fatcity) writes: > In article <24066@beta.lanl.gov> dd@beta.lanl.gov (Dan Davison) writes: > ..... > >Then perhaps if the committee had concentrated on improving Fortran > >instead of molding it in the image of a CS language product none of the > >travail would have been necessary. > ...It is not a CS language product... CS types hate the product. Actually, that 'CS types hate the product....' means only that those who had a hand in the design of Fortran 8x (CS types, engineers, scientists, and all) have succeeded both in antagonizing the Fortran user community and in incurring the disdain of the CS types.
alm@a.lanl.gov (Alex Marusak) (04/12/89)
Some comments cry out for a response: In article <98041@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>, khb@fatcity.Sun.COM (fatcity) writes: > ..... > Wrong. The sad fact is that the much of the US public comment was > clearly misinformed.... Of the comment that was sensible, > much was accepted. It should be noted that the informed commentators > requested basically what WG5 did.... > Some of us on X3J3 disagree with the sentiment expressed above. There will be a second public review period for Fortran 8x. If you are one of the people who took the time and made the effort to comment the first time around, and you felt a jolt of adrenaline upon reading that "The sad fact is that much of the US public comment was clearly misinformed...", you will have another chance to comment. Do so.
mike@arizona.edu (Mike Coffin) (04/12/89)
From article <98041@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>, by khb@fatcity.Sun.COM (fatcity): > [Fortran 88] is not a CS language product. It is the result of many > "real world engineers and scientsts" crafting a tool to solve their > problems. CS types hate the product. I think you exaggerate; I haven't met many CS types who *care* enough to hate the product. As far as language design goes, the "real world" and CS long ago parted company; few in the "real world" are interested in designing a new language, and few in CS are interested in designing an old one. -- Mike Coffin mike@arizona.edu Univ. of Ariz. Dept. of Comp. Sci. {allegra,cmcl2}!arizona!mike Tucson, AZ 85721 (602)621-2858
khb@fatcity.Sun.COM (Keith Bierman Sun Tactical Engineering) (04/12/89)
In article <863@a.lanl.gov> alm@a.lanl.gov (Alex Marusak) writes: >Some comments cry out for a response: > >In article <98041@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>, khb@fatcity.Sun.COM (fatcity) writes: >> ..... >> Wrong. The sad fact is that the much of the US public comment was >> clearly misinformed.... Of the comment that was sensible, >> much was accepted. It should be noted that the informed commentators >> requested basically what WG5 did.... >> >Some of us on X3J3 disagree with the sentiment expressed above. True. I should have toned down the reaction. My aplogies to anyone who has taken offense. > >There will be a second public review period for Fortran 8x. If you >are one of the people who took the time and made the effort to comment >the first time around, and you felt a jolt of adrenaline upon reading >that "The sad fact is that much of the US public comment was clearly >misinformed...", you will have another chance to comment. Do so. Hear! Hear! Cheers Keith H. Bierman It's Not My Fault ---- I Voted for Bill & Opus