[Info-vax] Fortran

[Simon Clubley]

On 2018-12-05, abrsvc <dansabrservices at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 5, 2018 at 4:32:39 AM UTC-5, Dave Froble wrote:
>> On 12/5/2018 3:26 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>> >
>> > They were removed because it is a concept which results in both
>> > hard to read and hard to maintain code and which was replaced by
>> > a safer option decades ago.
>> >
>> > Fortran has had ideas which seemed good at the time but which have
>> > not stood the test of time. The other one which comes immediately
>> > to mind are common blocks whose definitions are repeated in more
>> > than one place.
>> >
>> 
>> The question remains, was it necessary?
>> 

Yes.

>> If the compiler could have continued to support the "hard to read and 
>> maintain code", and there was no reason to remove the capability, then 
>> that should not have been done.
>> 

And what about newly written compilers ?

Should they continue to support an obsolete and dangerous construct
when there's a safer replacement ?

This is no different from requiring /standard=vaxc to build VAX C code
in DEC C. Should every new compiler have a /standard=vaxc option added
to it or should the user's code be changed to use modern constructs ?

If John is reading this, please, please, please tell me you are _NOT_
going to add a /standard=vaxc option to Clang. :-)

>> Causing others to do some work, which would not have been necessary, is 
>> not a good thing.  Causing others to re-write usable code, because some 
>> don't like it, is arrogance carried to the extreme.
>> 
>
> The one that caused the most pain was the loss of the octal constant support.  While trivial to change, the decades old modules that continue to provide the functions required had to be changed only to specify the value in a different way.  Why?  It seems to me that supporting this was not a major problem.  It is water under the bridge now of course, but many man-hours were spent to make this change.
>

Removing octal constant support was a bit strange unless there's
something I am not understanding. Like you, I don't really see any
reason why it could not have been left in place. This is different
from the removal of Hollerith support where the removal of Hollerith
support brings distinct safety benefits.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
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