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
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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"