Re: New style DO syntax?

Joe Krahn wrote:
....
Well, speed of progression and the degree of public inclusion are two
different things. Many new languages develop quite fast and fairly
successfully because there is a lot of open, public involvement.
Fortran works with a committee system, which only gets community
involvement in a passive way. That's why posting language ideas to
this newsgroup is a useful thing, even though it seems mostly futile,
and often followed by comments that people who want to change Fortran
should go away.

Concensus is not something you expect in a public venue. Vociferous
minorities can attempt to dominate and many will call for an end
to the discussion (or, as you say, insist that it's not worth discussing
in the first place).

Still there are many advantages to public debate. One is that, for a
given new capability, it often happens that some outsider has already
found a solution that's superior to the "official" proposed feature.
A wider variety of alternatives to choose from is always an advantage.

Another advantage is that the debate plants the ideas in the minds of
the public. This permits more informed discussions later (like when
outsiders converse with their committee representative). It also
might spur more people to take an interest - maybe even joining the
committee.

There are a number of changes I'd like to see. Many capabilities are
long overdue. But, until they've been *widely* discussed, it will
remain too early for the committee to consider them. A bad feature
implementing a desirable capability is worse than no feature at
all.

--
J. Giles

"I conclude that there are two ways of constructing a software
design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously
no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated
that there are no obvious deficiencies." -- C. A. R. Hoare


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Relevant Pages

  • Invitation to comment on Final Committee Draft for Fortran 2003
    ... The Final Committee Draft of the next standard for Fortran has ... Lists" item in the menu on the left, and then on "j3" near the top of the ...
    (comp.lang.fortran)
  • Re: New style DO syntax?
    ... I'm talking about the whole Fortran ... user community which *needs* to perceive that they are involved ... votes have a lot more power than being on the committee. ... Another advantage of widespread public debate. ...
    (comp.lang.fortran)
  • Re: advice on books to learn cobol
    ... committee funded by the Department of Defense) and has been around, like, ... but I recall being taught that FORTRAN predated COBOL. ... The first manual for FORTRAN appeared in October 1956, ... Defense. ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)
  • Fortran 2008 (was Re: Statement function host association)
    ... Has the committee voted to remove any other features from Fortran 2008? ... committee has still not begun work on a new version of the C standard. ... the progressives having moved to C++ long ago. ...
    (comp.lang.fortran)