Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!sun!chiba!khb From: khb%chiba@Sun.COM (Keith Bierman - SPD Advanced Languages) Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran Subject: Re: Was: Re: length of a character string Message-ID: <125409@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> Date: 28 Sep 89 06:17:38 GMT References: <2490@ualtamts.BITNET> <125348@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <2494@ualtamts.BITNET> Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM Reply-To: khb@sun.UUCP (Keith Bierman - SPD Advanced Languages) Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View Lines: 52 In article <2494@ualtamts.BITNET> userAKDU@ualtamts.BITNET (Al Dunbar) writes: > >I am glad to hear such comments. It is regretable that X3J3 has been >unable to generate better PR. I appreciate some of the problems inherent >in the process, but that appreciation has come mostly through my >membership in CSA/CPL/FWG (and now your comments). One does what one can ... if ANSI were a profit making organization, perhaps a PR firm could be retained ... :> >Not to offend Global Engineering, but, if we ask all those >expressing an Many members of X3J3 were extremely displeased that X3 (the parent committee) refused permission to have the standard widely distributed. It appears that Fortran documents are such popular documents that they are treated as a fund raising event ... as Walt posted a couple of weeks back, Tom Lahey's company is distributing copies (clean readable ones) for cost. >from individuals WHO DID NOT PURCHASE THEIR OWN OFFICIALLY SANCTIONED >COPIES (as has been suggested might be the case) would be a travesty. It >would be better to reject those comments that are based on an obviously >incorrect copy. Presley Smith was offering his own "legalistic" opinon. Presley is a very smart guy, and is probably legally correct (so if you plan to sue ANSI retain him :>) but I seriously doubt that X3J3 will reject opinons based on where you got your copy. >The answer is, that the PROMPT= keyword puts the ball in the o/s's court, >which has a much better chance to make the appropriate determination than >a Fortran program, regardless of whether the appropriate >device is I beg to differ ... putting behavior directly into the programmers hands seems to moi as more likely to produce repeatable results on different platforms. >Having made all these comments, I will close with the standard clause we >put on most of our submissions to X3J3 and/or WG5: "We would like to see >this feature added/deleted/modified, but NOT at the expense of preventing >a timely release of a long overdue Fortran Standard". amen. Keith H. Bierman |*My thoughts are my own. !! kbierman@sun.com It's Not My Fault | MTS --Only my work belongs to Sun* I Voted for Bill & | Advanced Languages/Floating Point Group Opus | "When the going gets Weird .. the Weird turn PRO"