tower@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Leonard H. Tower Jr.) (10/21/87)
Just forwarding this along. Suspect some of you could be affected down the line. enjoy -len ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 5 Oct 87 10:16 EDT From: John C Klensin <Klensin@MIT-Multics.ARPA> Subject: Fortran 8X To: bboard@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU For anyone who might be interested, the proposed revised Fortran standard has been announced for public review. This version of the language, under development for several years, contains a large collection of extensions that give it much of the power and capabilities of languages like Ada (tm) including array operations, user-defined data types, facilities for modular data and procedure definitions, and "the concept of language evolution". This revision has been vigorously opposed by several parties on the grounds (among others) that it will make Fortran too large and complex to be mastered and used by major portions of its traditional user community. Many of the opponents have voted to expose it for public review only as a consequence of a belief that it is time that general opinion "corrects" the position of the majority position on the developing technical committee. On the other hand, the draft standard definitely has its advocates, who argue that these changes and extensions are needed to keep Fortran useful in the age of parallel machines and computations and/or to incorporate more modern language constructions. While no FORTRAN 77 features have been deleted, the draft standard identifies a very large fraction of traditional FORTRAN s obsolescent or deprecated. That list includes arithmetic IF, real control variables, shared DO termination, alternate return, ASSIGN and assigned GOTO, EQUIVALENCE, assumed-size dummy arrays, passing array elements or substrings, BLOCK DATA, the COMMON statement, the ENTRY statement, statement functions, non-generic names for intrinsic functions, computed GOTO, most of the DATA statement, the DIMENSION statement, and the DOUBLE PRECISION statement. In each of these cases, replacement facilities -- either more general or more aesthetically pleasing to the developers -- have been provided, and these traditional facilities are therefore redundant. The draft standard requires that both the old and the new functions be supported in parallel until such time as the old ones can be discarded, although there appear to be some restrictions on the use of both "old" and "new" features in the same program. The document, and the internal comments and objections to it, can be ordered for $50 from Global Engineering Documents, 800-854-7179. Comments should be sent to Catherine Katchurik, X3 Secretariat/CBEMA, 311 First Street NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20001, with a copy to the Board of Standards Review, ANSI, 1430 Broadway, New York City, NY 10018. Please do not comment on the basis of the summary above: I have a well-known position on this subject that has almost certainly influenced what I have chosen to include in the summary. If, on the other hand, you are a Fortran user, it is in your interests to obtain and review this document and comment (whatever your position). It is the clear, and quite public, intent of several members of the technical committee to get this draft standard approved and then use the government procurement process to impose it on all vendors and users. If this is desirable, then fine. If it is not, profuse and detailed objections now are the only way to stop it. The comment period closes 23 February. However, note that Global is often somewhat slow and the document is over 3/4 inch thick without the internal committee comments and not especially easy to follow, so order early if you are going to respond. I am not directly involved in the development effort, nor have I contributed to the draft standard, so don't comment to me -- this announcement is provided only as a public service, to give as much timely notice to the MIT community as possible. If you have colleagues who should know about this who don't see this list, please pass the notice along. ----------------------------------------------------------------------