Re: Append to screen IO

Ben Hetland <ben.a.hetland@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Dick Hendrickson wrote:

Darn, dealers choice again. The standard doesn't say.
[what happens if you exceed implementation limits]

Typical way to solve conflicts and get matters through the decision
process. Apparently no problem seems to exist anymore if you stick your
head in the sand ...

I would say that was a miscategorization of this issue. You are talking
here about what happens when the code has an error. In this case, the
error is exceeding an implementation limit. Note first that not until
f90 did the standard say anything at all about the behavior of errors at
all. It only addressed what happened with correct programs.

As of f90, there is an intentionally limitted set of errors that the
standard requires diagnosis of. That set is very limitted, and
intentionally so. It tends to emphasize compile-time diagnostics. Dick
has explained why this one can't always be done at compile time (though
some cases of it can be).

You will never be able to get a system that diagnoses absolutely every
possible failure. Don't forget to include system failures such as
catching on fire (which does happen; I've seen it). Not in this universe
can you get that degree of guarantee; that's the next one over. Even for
errors that are practical to diagnose, there is often a cost, and large
portions of the Fortran user community do not want to pay that cost.
They quite emphatically do not want to.

The fine detail of exactly what diagnosis to mandate in the standard is
a regular subject of discussion (ibcluding in the standard's bodies).
But "everything" isn't an option. Never has been, and never will be.

A common approach is to make diagnosis of many things optional. It is
between the vendors and the customers to determine whether the diagnosis
is worth the cost in various cases.

The standard is not an appropriate place to solve every problem in the
world - not even every Fortran related problem. There actually is a role
for such things as competition. I might say that those who expect that
the standard will solve every problem they have might themselves have
their head in the sand to the extent that they are unable to see the
real world out there.

--
Richard Maine | Good judgement comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgement.
domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain
.

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