On Fri, 5 May 2000 09:26:51 +0100 (BST) Clive Page <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> On Fri, 5 May 2000, Michael Metcalf wrote:
> 
> > Quite frequently, very strong opinions are expressed in this
> > group
> 
> OK, here's another strong opinion.  I appreciate your efforts as editor of 
> Fortran Forum, but suspect that you are merely promoting a dying medium.
> (note: "medium" is the singular of "media", please join my campaign to
> keep it alive).   
> 
> If I publish anything in a learned journal, or present something at a
> conference, the time-scale for feedback is months, or even a year.  If I
> publish it on-line, people can react within hours or days, and often do.
> Occasionally people even thank me.   
> 
> Most of my colleagues who are active researchers _never_ visit the
> University Library any more - all the journals they wish to read are
> available on-line, and tracking down a paper published some years ago is
> much easier, faster, and more certain, if one uses an on-line search
> service than if one resorts to printed indexes or abstracting journals.
> Issues of some astronomical journals are now on-line right back to 1800,
> and most of the back runs will be complete soon.  No library around here
> has anything going back more than 30 years.  That's ephemerality for you
> (and astronomers do sometimes need to look at old data).
> 
> A couple of years ago I actually tried to subscribe to "ACM Fortran Forum" 
> - it didn't then have a secure web-site (does it now?) and took the risk
> of sending my credit card number in an open e-mail.  I waited for many
> weeks but got no results (no journal, no credit-card debit).  I wasn't
> sure that sending another e-mail would be any more effective than the
> first one, and I'm not senior enough to have a phone than can made direct
> international calls, so I gave up.  Now I think that I can do without
> subscribing to Fortran information printed on slices of dead tree.
> 
> > Postings here are, however, ephemeral. 
> 
> A journal which doesn't have many subscribers, and isn't available in many
> libraries isn't much more accessible;  at least many of the better
> postings to this list and to Usenet get grabbed and incorporated in a
> number of web-sites.  They may last as long as Fortran does. 

posting to comp-fortran-90 are archived indefinitely.
I made a case to mailbase some time ago and they accepted
the points and agreed to do this.

> 
> How's that for a strong opinion? (and you're welcome to reprint it in your
> journal if you wish, with suitable attribution).
> 
> Please note: I wish you well in your endeavour, but the world is changing,
> whether we like it or not.
> 
> -- 
> Clive Page,
> Dept of Physics & Astronomy,               
> University of Leicester.                   
> 

-------------------
Ian Chivers
[log in to unmask]

* This e-mail message was sent with Execmail V5.0 *



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%