01-116r3

    Issue 311 - Annex B is Obsolete

To:         J3
From:       Craig Dedo
Date:       March 22, 2001
Subject:    Issue 311 - Annex B is Obsolete

Issue
The editor writes:
It might seem amusing that the Annex on obsolete features is
obsolete, but I doubt that most readers of the standard will
appreciate the humor.  :-)  This annex has mostly been ignored
while revising material that it refers to.  There might be some of
this that is still correct, but I wouldn't trust any of it without
carefully checking.

I suggest the possibility that it is sufficient to describe the
deleted features rather than giving edit diffs to effectively
insert them.  Specifically, keep B.1.0, but remove the B.1.x
subsections.  One could argue for expanding the material in B.1 to
discuss possible conversions, just as B.2 does.  It seems odd that
we discuss conversion of the obsolescent features that are still in
the language, but not of the deleted features.  All we do for the
deleted ones is give edits for undeleting them.

While I acknowledge that many vendors will continue to implement
the deleted features, they shouldn't need such explicit detail in
the standard.  Furthermore, we should not spend our time worrying
about how to standardize any interactions between deleted features
and new ones.  If we craft exact edits to insert the deleted
features, that's in essence what we will have to do.

Analysis
    While acknowledging the merit of fixing the current state of
    Annex B, there are at least three (3) ways of resolving the
    issue of detailed edits in Annex B.
    1.  Keep the current detailed edits and fix them up to be
    consistent with the current draft of the standard.
    2.  Delete the detailed edits and only keep the very brief
    overview at the beginning of section B.1.
    3.  Replace the detailed edits with a technical specification
    of each of the deleted features.

    On March 20, 2001, J3 took a first straw vote on which option
    it prefers.  Here are the results of the first straw vote.
    0   Keep the detailed edits.
    6   Delete the detailed edits and only keep the brief overview.
    6   Replace the detailed edits with technical specification.
After discussing the result of the straw vote, JOR originally
decided to recommend replacing the detailed edits with technical
specification.

    On March 22, 2001, J3 took a second straw vote on which option
    it prefers.  Here are the results of the second straw vote.
    4   Keep the detailed edits.
    4   Delete the detailed edits and only keep the brief overview.
    1   Replace the detailed edits with technical specification.
    1   Undecided

    The second issue of the lack of recommendations for conversion
    of the deleted features also has merit.  This paper includes
    edits to insert such recommendations into part B.1.1.

Edits
    Edits are with respect to the 01-007.

[411:4-20]  Delete Issue 311.

    Following are edits to add recommendations for conversion of
    the deleted features to standard-conforming features.

[411:28]    Add at the end of the paragraph, "Programmers can
achieve a similar result by using a DO construct with no loop
control and the appropriate exit test."

[411:31]    Add at the end of the paragraph, "Programmers can
achieve a similar result by branching to a CONTINUE statement that
is immediately after the END IF statement."

[411:34]    Add at the end of the paragraph, "Programmers can
achieve a similar result by writing a message to the appropriate
unit followed by reading from the appropriate unit."

[411:39]    Add at the end of the paragraph, "Programmers can
achieve a similar result by using other control constructs instead
of the assigned GOTO statement and by using default character
variables to hold valid format specifications instead of the
assigned FORMAT statement."

[412:3]     Add at the end of the paragraph, "Programmers can
achieve a similar result by using character string edit descriptors
instead of H edit descriptors."

[412:4-5]   Replace the existing text with the following text.
    The following is a list of the previous editions of the
    international Fortran standard, along with their informal
    names.
ISO/IEC 1539:1972       Fortran 66
ISO/IEC 1539:1978       Fortran 77
ISO/IEC 1539:1991       Fortran 90
ISO/IEC 1539:1997       Fortran 95

    Following are edits for replacing the detailed edits in
    sections B.1.1 - B.1.5 with references to the Fortran 90
    standard.

[412:6-414:26]  Replace the existing text with the following text.
    The interested reader is referred to the appropriate locations
    in the Fortran 90 standard for detailed rules of how these
    deleted features work.

References
01-007, Fortran 2000 Draft
01-102, Changes to List of Unresolved Issues
[End of J3 / 01-116r3]