From owner-sc22wg5+sc22wg5-dom8=www.open-std.org@open-std.org Mon Oct 27 21:19:42 2014 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 B335A358790; Mon, 27 Oct 2014 21:19:42 +0100 (CET) Delivered-To: sc22wg5@open-std.org X-Greylist: delayed 1323 seconds by postgrey-1.34 at www5.open-std.org; Mon, 27 Oct 2014 21:19:40 CET Received: from mail.jpl.nasa.gov (mailhost.jpl.nasa.gov [128.149.139.109]) by www.open-std.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E1A23357073 for ; Mon, 27 Oct 2014 21:19:37 +0100 (CET) Received: from [137.79.7.57] (math.jpl.nasa.gov [137.79.7.57]) by smtp.jpl.nasa.gov (Sentrion-MTA-4.3.1/Sentrion-MTA-4.3.1) with ESMTP id s9RJvTBn019955 (using TLSv1/SSLv3 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA (128 bits) verified NO) for ; Mon, 27 Oct 2014 12:57:30 -0700 Subject: From a colleague From: Van Snyder Reply-To: Van.Snyder@jpl.nasa.gov Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Organization: Yes Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 12:57:29 -0700 Message-ID: <1414439849.3034.421.camel@math.jpl.nasa.gov> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.32.3 (2.32.3-30.el6) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Source-Sender: Van.Snyder@jpl.nasa.gov X-AUTH: Authorized To: undisclosed-recipients:; Sender: owner-sc22wg5@open-std.org Precedence: bulk My colleague wrote: I've just learned that at least some compilers will no longer support the arithmetic IF statement. The reason being that there is no good answer as to what this statement should do if the value in question is a NaN. And here I thought that compiler writers would continue to support all the old features out of self interest. But here there seems to be no good answer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This colleague has "only" about 170,000 lines of Fortran 77 code to support. He's a semi-retired proprietor of a small business, with no staff other than himself to revise his codes so as not to use Arithmetic IF. I don't know how many clients are using his software. I'm expecting that people who use a library of mathematical software on which I worked, from 1974 until support was discontinued in 1996, will experience the same problem. At one time, we had 600 users. I don't know how many people still use it. Was it really wise, and especially was it necessary, to delete Arithemtic IF? Couldn't we just leave it in obsolescent font?