On Thu, 4 Dec 1997, Len Makin, CSIRO Maths & Info Sci, Melbourne. wrote:
> I fully agree. It's a bit like IMPLICIT NONE. When giving courses on F90,
> I recommend both
> - every program unit contains IMPLICIT NONE
> - every module starts with PRIVATE
> as a convention/programming style. Pity these two are not defaults.
> I'd like to be able to say "Not just a good idea - it's the LAW!" ;-)
Let me disagree with this widespread point of view.
Fortran is great because it leaves you freedom. If you want to program
safely, nobody can stop you; but I like to be left the choice to myself.
Not everybody writes huge programs all the time: I am using Fortran
every day, but most of the time to write small programs (I use it very
often instead of a pocket calculator or of a shell script). In these
cases I am not willing to waste my time declaring all variables,
including the index of the do-loop which sometimes constitutes my whole
program.
The implicit type convention is extremely useful for this kind of "scrap
paper" calculations. When I have to write a "serious" program then
things are different, and I take seriously IMPLICIT NONE, indentation,
comments, etc. But please, forget unnecessary constraints and especially
the LAWs: we are all adults, not schoolchildren.
A. Fasso'
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Alberto Fasso'
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Radiation Physics Dept. ms 48, P.O. Box 4349
Stanford CA 94309 (USA)
Tel. (1 650) 926 4062 Fax: (1 650) 926 3569
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