Dan Nagle
verizon.net> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On 2008-07-03 16:21:50 -0400, Michael Prager
>
noaa.gov> said:>>
>> Of course, the standards committee is to be commended for
>> keeping the momentum up, rather than waiting too long (as from
>> 77 to 90),
>
> Thank-you. However, neither WG5 nor J3 can take the credit
> (although we will, no doubt, take the blame). It's
> an ISO rule that we must produce updates every five years.
>
>> but it's hard to understand the logic of finalizing
>> standard N+2 when N+1 has yet to be implemented and tested.
>
> I can't understand this at all.
>
[...]
Well, perhaps I'm not communicating well. My thoughts on this
are about logistics rather than language design.
If I were a compiler vendor, I would find the situation
difficult, that before I have finished meeting one standard, the
next becomes current. It seems rather depressing to work on a
difficult product that is already obsolete. However, I am *not*
a compiler vendor, so perhaps I am mistaken about this . I
won't ask any of them to take a stand here!
As a programmer, one faces a similar situation. Why did I buy a
book on F2003?
There are Fortran programmers who find even Fortran 90 too
modern. I don't agree with that sentiment, but surely it
doesn't serve the user base to have the language always a moving
target.
Finally, it seems to me that a useful function of the Fortran
after F03 would be to clean up any infelicities instroduced by
F03. It will not be possible to know what those are until F03
has had substantial use.
Regards,
Mike
P.S. I won't post more on this topic. There is really no point
to continue the discussion -- the wheels are in motion.
--
Mike Prager, NOAA, Beaufort, NC
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* Opinions expressed are personal and not represented otherwise.
* Any use of tradenames does not constitute a NOAA endorsement.
