Hi Robin:
Sorry to keep you waiting. It happens to be summer, which is a precious commodity
in these parts, so I went sailing instead of gluing myself to the computer.
The "**" symbol is the only case I am aware of in which operators can appear
side-by-side. When one is preparing complicated formulae (perhaps your book
contains a few?), it is easy to mistype something, and the compiler will
immediately tell you if you've accidentally got a "+" next to a "-" for example.
But it won't tell you if you've mistakenly got two "*" side-by-side. Many formula
multiply quantities, and therefore contain many "*" operators, so it is easy to
miss the fact that you have one too many, (or one too few).
That's what I meant by "typo".
Mike
robin wrote:
> >Since recent discussion centres on "improvements" for future Fortran,
> >may I suggest the introduction of "^" symbol for exponentiation, to
> >eventually replace "**".
> >
> >This would be consistent with some of the algebraic manipulation systems, and
> >remove the possibility of certain typos going undetected.
>
> Still waiting to hear what kinds of "typos" can be incurred in writing a**b ?
>
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