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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-lcc!pyramid!batcomputer!garry
From: garry@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Garry Wiegand)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.misc,sci.lang
Subject: "non-compliant"
Message-ID: <1634@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Date: Wed, 8-Jul-87 00:45:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: batcompu.1634
Posted: Wed Jul  8 00:45:40 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Jul-87 02:56:09 EDT
Reply-To: garry@oak.cadif.cornell.edu
Organization: Cornell Engineering && Flying Moose Graphics
Lines: 28
Xref: mnetor comp.lang.fortran:152 comp.lang.misc:515 sci.lang:1084

In a recent article firth@bd.sei.cmu.edu.UUCP (PUT YOUR NAME HERE) wrote:
>In article <371@nikhefh.UUCP> i91@nikhefh.UUCP (Fons Rademakers) writes:
>>Does somebody know what the ANSI FORTRAN 77 standard says about
>>list directed I/O from internal files? 
>...
>The Apollo compiler is right.  The others are non-compliant,
>but you might check for some invocation switch or option that
>would request compliance.

I've seen this usage before, and it strikes me as very odd. In common
English, "compliant" means something like "permissive, cooperative,
forgiving".     

"Non-compliant" means that someone is not complying with something. In
the case at hand, the compiler is going out its way to allow the
programmer to do something she wants to do. It is the *Standard*
that the compiler is not complying with, in the section where the
standard says "this activity is not to be permitted, cooperated with,
or forgiven".

Thus - by not cooperating with an instruction not to cooperate - the 
forgiving compiler gets labelled as "ick, nasty, non-compliant!"

It's a bit of double-speak worthy of the Government. How about we 
banish it before Justice Rehnquist discovers it?

garry wiegand   (garry@oak.cadif.cornell.edu - ARPA)
		(garry@crnlthry - BITNET)