(j3.2006) [Fwd: Fortran 2008 query]

[Bill Long]

> On Oct 26, 2017, at 7:56 PM, Van Snyder <Van.Snyder at jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 2017-10-26 at 21:47 +0000, Bill Long wrote:
>> Future memory schemes will involve (faster) memory incorporated into the processor chip, or stacked very close.  And less memory/chip.  With more cores, definitely less memory/core.
> 
> This is almost irrelevant to compiling long statements or even long definitions of named constants.  There will almost certainly be more memory per node.  

I do not understand why you think that.

> And nobody is advocating gigabytes in a named constant.  

A gigabyte is way smaller than ?unlimited? which is what some are advocating. 

> Stop the exaggeration.  If statement length is made unlimited in the standard, which I think is the case in every other real language, and somebody stumbles over a processor's limitation (in the same category as a limit on construct nesting), that's his problem instead of the standard's problem.  It's not the standard's duty to protect every moron from having to think.


There is no responsible way to say ?unlimited? in the standard.  Instead, we say processor dependent, with a required minimum, which is what I proposed and you rejected. Subclause 4.2 spells out the ?size and complexity? rules, which effectively make any claim about ?unlimited? source form characteristics meaningless.  We need to agree on a minimum requirement and include that in the standard.  We have already done that, and the current agreement is 255 for continuation lines.  If that needs to be changed, it needs to be changed to a specific (and not ridiculous) number. 

In C (2011), among 15 restrictions on program size, I see

this:  "	? 4095 characters in a logical source line?.   

and, for an enum, which is close to a long list in a named-constant declaration, the limit is "	? 1023 enumeration constants in a single enumeration?. 

I don?t think Fortran is as cripplingly restrictive as you seem to think.  I?d be open to numbers like 1023 or 4095.  

Cheers,
Bill

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Bill Long                                                                       longb at cray.com
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