08-221
To: J3
From: Michael Ingrassia
Subject: Public Comment J32007
Date: 2008 July 08
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Commenter's Subject was "the official interpretations should be examined"

The Fortran standard should be written in such a manner that
a reader who is not a member of the committee should be able
to understand it without needing to read the interpretations
issued against Fortran 90, Fortran 95, and Fortran 2003.

The committee should examine the interpretations issued
against the previous Fortran standards to see that those
interpretations are reflected in the text of the new standard.
Many of those interpretations were requested by senior members
of the committee, a succession of interpretations were
considered and rejected before the final interpretation was
issued, and yet the text of the standard was left unchanged.
Given that the unmodified text raised questions in the minds
of members of the committee, that text can reasonably be
supposed to be confusing to readers who are not members of
the committee.

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