lipa@POLYA.STANFORD.EDU (William Lipa) (07/15/88)
Last week I received the release version of Language Systems Corporation's Fortran compiler for use with MPW. This is probably the nicest Fortran programming environment that I have ever seen. The MPW editor is very nice, and the Fortran run-time package is quite powerful. For example, it saves the output of your program off the top of the screen and allows you to scroll through it when your program is done. You can also print your output or save it to a disk file using menu commands. The compiler seems very reliable -- it doesn't have any problems with programs that cause Absoft/Microsoft MacFortran to bomb at first sight. I have brought large programs (15,000 lines plus) over from a Vax and have gotten them running almost immediately. The only problem with the compiler is that the code it produces is slow. It is about two-thirds the speed of Absoft Fortran. This is a significant disadvantage, but they promise speed improvements in the next release (coming in a few months). I find that the other advantages (ease of use, reliability) more than make up for this time penalty. Bill Lipa Internet: lipa@polya.stanford.edu Bitnet: lipa%polya@forsythe