Re: Fortran 2008 (was Re: New style DO syntax?)

I think I agree if the sentiment expressed below is that there is
insufficient consideration given in the standardization process to how
well Fortran supports the majority of applications being written today
and instead focuses on niche application domains of limited value to
the larger numbers of users. Before any new features are added, we
need to assess how Fortran could be changed to make it more valuable to
a wider variety of users rather than just making it more perfect for a
very limited set of users. I believe that identifying those changes
would show that they are quite modest and would not actually hinder the
process of making it more perfect for that limited set of users.

<Quote>
The problem with co-arrays is that there's only one implementation,
and that is by a vendor whose market share is minuscule. There can't
be more than a couple dozen people who have significant code
development
experience with co-arrays, and the spectrum of applications with which
they
have worked is necessarily limited. Given that co-arrays will take up
a
large fraction of valuable committee time, and their implementation in
practice
may be quite expensive, why is it wise to proceed with a
standardization effort
now?

If you ask me, I think it would be much better for purposes of F2008 to
put
some effort into a better set of Fortran bindings to MPI, say as a
technical report.
There are thousands of people who work with MPI on a regular basis, and
several orders of magnitude more MPI codes than co-array codes.
Compared to
co-arrays, the effort involved would be much less and would be a
greater service
to the community.

It may well be that co-arrays turn out to be useful - but nobody really
knows because
almost nobody has experience with them. We already have FORALL, which
adds no capability that couldn't be gotten from vectorized DO loops or
similar
techniques, and it was derived from an experimental Fortran dialect
that was already dead
by the time the F95 standard was completed.

--Eric
</quote>

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