(j3.2006) (SC22WG5.4192) WG5 Las Vegas Feb-2010/J3 m191 minutes 10-144

[Craig Rasmussen]

On Feb 23, 2010, at 2:32 PM, Van Snyder wrote:

> The only way to make Fortran attractive to young people is to keep  
> it on
> a track to becoming and remaining a modern language, or, better yet,  
> to
> offer unique features aimed at reducing the cost and increasing the
> reliability of engineering and scientific computing that aren't  
> offered
> by any other significantly-used language.  If we stop development now,
> even if only for a ten-year hiatus, the perception of Fortran as an
> irrelevant fossil will only be re-enforced.

Why do you say ten-year hiatus?  Do you consider F2008 to be  
insignificant?

 From the perspective of my employer, it is much more important that  
compilers universally (or pretty much so) implement the standard than  
for the standard to outpace vendor compilers that we use.  Since we  
use Pathscale and PGI compilers (in addition to other vendors  
represented on J3), it is pretty clear that LANL developers are more  
interested in performance than features.

Just another data point to consider.

-craig