I have been using this system on a windows 98 machine for some months and 
have found it works very well. The compiler has proved to be very robust 
particularly when dealing with modules that make use of F95 features such as 
pointer components initialised to NULL() and ELEMENTAL procedures. Fplus has 
managed handle the advanced f95 very well and it is months now since I 
managed to find any bugs. Those I did find in an earlier version were fixed 
fairly quickly but then NASoftware is run by some old friends and colleagues 
and is based only a mile or so down the road from here so I had a very direct 
line of contact. 

The software management built into the compile process is very helpful for 
building modules and testing them. It keeps pretty good track of dependencies 
and recompiles modules automatically most of the time when changes have been 
made that could effect a USEing program. Compilation is not as fast as some 
other systems I have used but since the link=>.exe generation is largely 
integral if the whole check dependencies-compile-link-go sequences actually 
compare not that badly. The .exe code produced is not breathtakingly fast 
although the polyhedron comparisons indicate that it is not too desparately 
out of line except perhaps when running F77 style codes.

F77 is a weakness (or a strenghth depending on your point of view). Fplus is 
fairly strict about supporting bog standard f77 and very few of the most 
universal non-standard extension. It would be a bit of a pain to get a large 
VAX Fortran 77 program to run on fplus unless the original authors has been 
very standard conscious. If used for teaching or serious redevelopment in F95 
this could be an advantage rather than a problem. However, users with large 
amounts of existing none too standard F77 could have more difficulty with 
Fplus than with some of the other PC Fortran 95 products. 

The Salford FTN95 for instance adds F95 to their previously much extended 
FTN77 processor and does a great job of running F77 codes that previously 
ran on FTN77. Sometimes these actually run better on FTN95. The Salford 
compiler unfortunately is less robust when processing highly F95 style new 
code.

The Fplus debugger is a bit crude and far from bug free itself. Its way of 
displaying components of derived type variables and arrays is clumsy and 
sometimes it proved quicker to revert to the old fashioned approach of 
sticking loads of prints in the code and debug it in the time honoured way.

Fplus also has the interesting addition that it is actively tracking the 
standards process and already implements a number of the TRs that are 
proposed to form part of F2000. It also builds in intrinsic support for the 
String standard ISO 1539-2:1994.

In spite Fplus' greater reliability for F95 code, my Department mainly 
supports the Salford product for Fortran on our NT network because of its 
backwards compatibility with our users' F77 code. However, I use Fplus most 
of the time myself because of its better F95 support.

--
Lawrie Schonfelder
Director, Computing Services Dept.
The University of Liverpool, UK, L69 7ZF
Phone: 44(151)794 3716, Fax: 44(151)794 3759






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