Re: condition true or false? -> (-1 < sizeof("test"))

["Terence" <tbwright@bigpond.net.au>]

Unsigned integers can be simple signed integers with enough bits to never
exceed the maximum positive number desired. Phylosophically there is no
difference. It's only the precision overflow than can cause a mathemetical
error in simple arithmetic.

Postings like this (not the integer bit, but the surrounding miasma of
complex code) cause me to ask 'WHY'?

Fortran has become more and more complex as the committees approve new
extensions or features and then vendors comply, and then users are 'forced'
to buy a new version or pay for an update if they want continued support.
And finally coding slows down.

It really doesn't have to be this way.

You've all read my discourses on continuing to use F77. I have my reasons,
even if I do also own a Fortran 90/95 compiler

The only negative that I have met (others might not) to my 1983 F77 compiler
is the limitation on contiguous memory space. I don't need any of the
'advances' beyond that version.
All the file formats I could possibly use are there. I can re-express any
modern Fortran code in an equivalent F77 code except for the contigous
memory requirements. (If I have to, I use work files).
I develop (very quickly indeed) in F77. If the client wants a native Windows
version I just recompile with the F95 one.

I don't have problems with a new setup on a newer computer (I'm now on my
gifted Mac Professional using MS Version 7; three earlier machine still work
fine). How many postings are about actually getting a compiler to work?

I have no problems with compiling, linking or even running on pretty much
any of my programs on any machine. How many postings are about how to do
this, or interpret the errors and warnings that a problematic
compiler-linker setup brings?

If I were to teach (again) any students in Fortran, I would still start with
F77. Only later, would I point out what you get with more recent compilers;
the use of modules and intent definitions; the distinction between public
and private data that is useful for OOPs work (strange abbreviation!), the
shortening of code (and reliability) with matrix-formulated operations and
so on, but...

There are some English dialects where every third or forth word is an
automatic obcenity (e.g. Geordie). I prefer the language versions without
the unnecesary stuff. There's more clarity.