From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Simon Clubley Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Delays for implementations of Fortran features Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 13:50:57 +0000 (UTC) Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 13:50:57 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: mx05.eternal-september.org; posting-host="c826a6a731cb85247a7f299cfb3073a1"; logging-data="23574"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/9tR2MGmk6yeQWpDqldmX2SAdYxgmZ3v8=" User-Agent: slrn/0.9.9p1 (Linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:02JTZ0xz3PEeAh0G7TxeGY2l4vo= Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:18223 Date: 2014-01-19T13:50:57+00:00 List-Id: On 2014-01-19, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote: > On 1/19/2014 5:54 AM, Marius Amado-Alves wrote: > >> But, there seems to be an important difference between the two >>open source communities: GNAT is quickly maintained w.r.t. to the >>language revision, whereas GFORTRAN is not (as reported above). >> > > May be that is because the new Fortran standard now has in it > everything but the kitchen sink? Modern Fortran has become > more complicated than C++, and one has to feel sorry for the > compiler engineers working on gfortran trying to catch up with > all those new "modern" features being added to Fortran every > few years. > At some point, a language reaches a good set of functionality for it's intended purposes and going beyond that can make the language more difficult to use than it should be. Perhaps the Fortran community now have the language they need in their day to day work. Ada didn't get it fully right with Ada 83, but Ada 95 is a good sweet spot for me. If the Ada language maintainers are not careful, then they are in danger of making the same mistake with Ada and produce something more complex than needed. Sometimes I wonder (and this is a general comment on language committees, not something directed to specific language committees like Fortran and Ada) if the temptation is to continue adding features into a language, even if the language doesn't need it, just so the language committee can continue in it's job, even if adding those features were to make the language more complex than it needs to be. [And yes, I know many of the language committees are staffed by people who are not directly paid for the work, but being able to say you are a active member of a language committee is a good thing to be able to place on your CV for your paid work.] > In the good old days, a computer language was simple and could be > learned in few days from cover to cover. Now it takes years > and one still can't learn everything in it. > I _really_ like Wirth's approach with his active effort to reduce a language to it's required core elements (I'm thinking about the Oberon variants here). Simon. PS: I just wish Oberon didn't have upper case keywords which need to be upper case because they are case sensitive keywords. -- Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP [Note: email address not currently working as the system is physically moving] Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world