Re: Exporting variables in and out subroutines (F77)

From: Richard Maine (nospam_at_see.signature)
Date: 09/05/04 

Date: Sun, 05 Sep 2004 14:00:30 -0700

Jack Malmostoso <jackmalmostoso@freesurf.ch> writes:

> Ciao James Van Buskirk, nel tuo messaggio dicevi:
>
>> Yeah, I bet you do! F77 doesn't have the kind of dynamic
>> memory capabilities you seem to be looking for in your
>> code.
>
> First, thanks for the superfast answer.
> Then: F77 really sucks, then.

Realize that f77 is over 25 years old. The subsequent f90 standard,
which added dynamic allocation, is nearing a decade and a half itself.
Since then there has been f95 and, later this year, f2003 should be
officially the current Fortran standard (though compilers will take
a while yet).

Lack of dynamic memory allocation is one of the 2 big reasons why I
personally left f77, even though I had been programming in it for
2 decades at the time. Lack of data structures other than the array
was the other big reason. There were plenty of other things in f90,
but those were the 2 that were driving me away from f77.

Although there are still plenty of reasons to know f77, I'd be a bit
disappointed in a university course that taught only f77 to the exclusion
of newer versions. I can't say that I'm surprised, as I've seen other
cases of it, but I'm disappointed. Frankly, if I had a prof that was
doing that, I'd tend to be dubious of his value as an educator. But then,
I've certainly had to take my share of courses where the only thing I
got out of the course was the credit - it happens. 

-- 
Richard Maine
email: my last name at domain
domain: summertriangle dot net

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