[log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> >The practice of using EQUIVALENCE in lieu of more
> >modern forms apparently is being discouraged.
>
> But aren't we also talking about code that we wrote back in the sixties? If it
> ain't broken ...
>
> I am not going to rewrite routines that work just because some constructs are
> discouraged or obsolescent. I know that most vendors (definitely, it seems,
> mine) will always support FORTRAN.
Discouraging the use of old error-prone features in new and revised
programs
and rewriting old codes are quite different things (although there are
some
excellent tools to rewrite your code, such as Foresys), so you can have
the
best of both worlds to some extent.
> I do not believe that a standards committee should dictate style, once a
> construct has become part of the language. (cf, the discussion on GOTO about 5
> months ago.)
The standards committee does not dictate style.
The discussion that I recall was about F, not Fortran (and BTW, the next
version
of F will allow the GOTO statement, but only to a CONTINUE statement--we
expect
Rich Maine to then do all his coding in F 8^).
> Yeah, except that REAL indices of Do loops were a mistake in the F77 standard,
> look at how many people on comp.lang.fortran seem unable to understand computer
> arithmetic. But, probably, most vendors will maintain them forever.
Probably so, but there is a cost in maintaining all these old features
every time a compiler is written. This must be balanced with the
convenience of retaining old features. When they can be converted
with software, then there is much less reason to keep them.
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