(j3.2006) (SC22WG5.3611) Preparing for the Tokyo meeting

[John Reid]

Dear all,

I have just put these new files on the WG5 site:
    1747 Coarrays in the next Fortran Standard (Reid) - supersedes N1724
    1749 VOLATILE Coarrays Break Existing Code (Maclaren)
    1751 An Analysis of NOTE 8.38 (Maclaren)
    1752 Draft response to N1745 (VOLATILE coarrays) (Reid)
I have issued document number for the following, but the papers are not 
available yet.
    [1746 Japan National Activity Report (Takata)]
    [1748 Clarifications of Coarray Memory Model (Maclaren and Donev)]
My last day in the office before going to Japan will be next Thursday. 6 Nov.
If possible, please send any new papers by then. Beyond then, please use email 
or the J3 site.

As I see it, the most difficult problems that we need to face in Tokyo are:

1. Whether coarrays should be integrated in Part 1.

2. Whether to allow coarrays to be volatile.

I have a suggestion re 1, which no-one seems to like (does this mean it might be 
suitable as a compromise?!): follow the precedent of Fortran 77 where there was 
a full language and a subset language. One caught on and everyone talking of 
Fortran 77 now means that one. It was done with facing pages specifying the two 
levels, which would not be practical for Fortran 2008. I think we would need to 
concatenate the two, which should not a problem in these days of electronic 
publication. Which of the two is developed further (or neither or both) would 
depend on their success in the field. If it is just one, that will be what 
future generations will regard as Fortran 2008.

My suggestion re 2 is in N1752.

See you in Tokyo.

John.