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From: hirchert@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: (none)
Message-ID: <50500067@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 17 Aug 88 17:16:00 GMT
References: <651@<8052>
Lines: 23
Nf-ID: #R:<8052:651:uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:50500067:000:1214
Nf-From: uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!hirchert    Aug 17 12:16:00 1988


Bill Hutchison(wgh@Grumpy.UUCP) writes:
> There is a fairly simple solution: anybody who wants to enhance a
>language in a way which is not upward portable should show how to
>provide a translation utility. ...
> So can such a utility be written for FORTRAN 66-to-8x or 77-to-8x?
>If so, OK, otherwise FORTRAN 8x will probably be a flop like Algol-68.

All of FORTRAN 77 is contained in Fortran 8x, so the 77-to-8x translator is
a straight copy program!  (Of course, the translation from a specific vendor's
extended FORTRAN 77 to their (possibly extended) Fortran 8x may not be so
easy if existing vendor extensions conflict with new 8x features.)  The
relevant question for the debate about Fortran 8x and obsolescent features is
"If all the obsolescent features in Fortran 8x were removed from Fortran 9x,
how difficult would the 8x-to-9x translator be?"

>Bill Hutchison, DP Consultant	rutgers!cbmvax!burdvax!Grumpy!wgh
>Unisys UNIX Portation Center	"What one fool can do, another can!"
>P.O. Box 500, M.S. B121		Ancient Simian Proverb, quoted by
>Blue Bell, PA 19424		Sylvanus P. Thompson, in _Calculus Made Simple_

Kurt W. Hirchert     hirchert@ncsa.uiuc.edu
National Center for Supercomputing Applications