(j3.2006) (SC22WG5.3782) Ballot on the technical content of the TR

[Aleksandar Donev]

Robert Corbett wrote:

> I understand that.  I also understand the advantage the proposal will
> give to vendors who already use the knew capabilities.  I don't like
> Sun being put at a disadvantage relative to those vendors.
Sun (and NAG, and whoever else does not store rank/type info in their 
descriptors), were not singled out to be "disadvantaged" intentionally 
nor even by accident (there were lengthy discussions over the rank/type 
issue). Neither was IBM for passing OPTIONAL arguments differently from 
others. Is it a better alternative to put everyone at a disadvantage, 
i.e., force everyone to implement something utterly new, unused by 
anyone at present, thing (as an example, read Nick's proposal), that is 
actually less handy for users???

Also, note that those vendors that carry around info in their 
descriptors already did some extra work to add that to their compiler 
infrastructure.

Finally, without the rank/type in a descriptor assumed-type and rank 
dummies become useless. It seemed they were in fact everyone's favorite, 
probably because everyone has desired them at some point in Fortran 
usage. Of course, we can add 3^3 different types of descriptors, one for 
assumed-shape, one for assumed-type, etc., and combinations thereof, but 
you will still not to implement it so why not simplify the TR to begin with?

Best,
Aleks