Re: It Hurts When I Do This

On 18 avr, 20:32, Clive Page <j...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> In message
> <9bfddca3-b45a-4649-ab77-1f894baec...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> GaryScott <garylsc...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes
>
> >It doesn't logically follow that to ask for a syntax for arrayness
> >requires a syntax for any other attributes.  The article makes it
> >quite clear that it is a common thought process among programmers and
> >a common pitfall.
>
> I for one don't agree.  It may be a common pitfall among programmers
> used to inferior languages such as C, C++, and Java which really don't
> sup****t much beyond simple scalar operations, but surely Fortran
> programmers are used to being able to use the name of an array and have
> it mean the entire array.  This has been standard practice in many
> statements (READ, WRITE,  PRINT, CALL, DATA, SUBROUTINE, FUNCTION, etc)
> since Fortran-II (I think), certainly since Fortran-IV/Fortran 66.
>
> The main change since then is that the whole-array notation was extended
> to every other appropriate context, and especially to expressions and
> assignments.  Of course this change came in as recently as 1990.
>
> I really don't think that a new notation is required just because some
> programmers are a bit slow to catch on to the new thought processes
> required.  Of course it doesn't help that so many other languages are
> still stuck in the scalar era.  Perhaps it's these that need a change of
> syntax?

OK, so I suppose that I belong to the family of programmers who are a
little bit slow ...

I like to use the notation (:) to distinguish arrays to scalars and I
don't agree with all the critics just because using a(:) is standard
conforming.

I was also very surprised about the problem of optimization met by
compilers. I think that replacing "a(:)" (or "a(:,: ...)") by "a" just
before parsing really the instruction is not a hard task !

Finally, using (:) or not is just a programming style and I observe
again an opposition between two families of programmers (a new war
similar to the famous one between programmers preferring indention
with two spaces or three spaces).

But I am a little bit disappointed  by the new F2003 feature about
automatic reallocation of  allocatable arrays. I think that doing
reallocation silently, just with A=B is dangerous. Why dangerous ? I
don't know ... just a feeling.

And I like the proposal of Glen to use the operator => for that
specific subject.


F. Jacq

> If they sup****ted whole-array operations, as a modern language surely
> should, the problem wouldn't arise.  :-)
>
> --
> Clive Page