From owner-sc22wg5+sc22wg5-dom8=www.open-std.org@open-std.org Sun Dec 22 10:54:46 2013 Return-Path: X-Original-To: sc22wg5-dom8 Delivered-To: sc22wg5-dom8@www.open-std.org Received: by www.open-std.org (Postfix, from userid 521) id 0CC223583AE; Sun, 22 Dec 2013 10:54:46 +0100 (CET) Delivered-To: sc22wg5@open-std.org Received: from ppsw-52.csi.cam.ac.uk (ppsw-52.csi.cam.ac.uk [131.111.8.152]) by www.open-std.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D9AFD3583A4 for ; Sun, 22 Dec 2013 10:54:44 +0100 (CET) X-Cam-AntiVirus: no malware found X-Cam-ScannerInfo: http://www.cam.ac.uk/cs/email/scanner/ Received: from hermes-2.csi.cam.ac.uk ([131.111.8.54]:46945) by ppsw-52.csi.cam.ac.uk (smtp.hermes.cam.ac.uk [131.111.8.158]:25) with esmtpa (EXTERNAL:nmm1) id 1VufkB-0007qY-Fb (Exim 4.82_3-c0e5623) (return-path ); Sun, 22 Dec 2013 09:54:43 +0000 Received: from prayer by hermes-2.csi.cam.ac.uk (hermes.cam.ac.uk) with local (PRAYER:nmm1) id 1VufkB-0004Kf-Ov (Exim 4.72) (return-path ); Sun, 22 Dec 2013 09:54:43 +0000 Received: from [91.125.183.180] by old-webmail.hermes.cam.ac.uk with HTTP (Prayer-1.3.5); 22 Dec 2013 09:54:43 +0000 Date: 22 Dec 2013 09:54:43 +0000 From: "N.M. Maclaren" To: sc22wg5 Subject: Re: [ukfortran] (SC22WG5.5161) (j3.2006) [ Draft corrigendum 3] Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <20131222004843.861D635835A@www.open-std.org> References: <20131126013542.D88A93582CC@www.open-std.org> <20131220171849.090F03582F4@www.open-std.org> <20131222004843.861D635835A@www.open-std.org> X-Mailer: Prayer v1.3.5 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=ISO-8859-1 Sender: owner-sc22wg5@open-std.org Precedence: bulk On Dec 22 2013, Malcolm Cohen wrote: > >I (and others) disagree with your assertion that > REAL x(*) > PARAMETER(x = [ 1,2,3,4,5 ]) is unreasonable and should never be > allowed. Disallowing this would break one of our basic design rules for > the BNF of declarations, which is that one can specify attributes > independently. Yes it is a smaller edit to the standard, and would not > remove significant functionality ... but then deleting the PARAMETER > statement entirely would not remove significant functionality! As someone who was not involved, I regrettably agree - though I think that Bill is right that such code IS unreasonable. Introducing gratuitous restrictions should be considered only when they prevent actual, fairly common, mistakes. I can't see one that this blocks. As someone who teaches both Fortran and C++, I really appreciate the consistency and relatively tiny number of 'gotchas' of Fortran. Fortran syntax may be verbose and horrible, but it is clean and consistent (remember that I prefer Algol 68!) I don't teach setting attributes separately but, if someone asks, I can simply say that I don't advise it but it can be done. That's it. A couple of minutes, and it's covered. Regards, Nick Maclaren.