[J3] Instead of += etc

[Bill Long]

> On Nov 1, 2018, at 4:38 AM, Anton Shterenlikht via J3 <j3 at mailman.j3-fortran.org> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 04:28:02PM -0700, Van Snyder via J3 wrote:
>> C-like "operators" such as += are occasionally proposed.  Of course, if
> 
> I think this train has sailed.
> 
> += is mentioned only once in N2147
> and only twice in the BCS survey:
> http://www.fortran.bcs.org/2018/FortranBenefitsSurvey_interimrep_Aug2018.pdf
> 
> At the SEP-2018 BCS Fortran meeting
> there were users asking for this again.
> Their justification was that it's surprising
> for people new to Fortran that what works
> in C, C++ does not work in Fortran. 
> I think this is a weak case.

Agreed.  There are a lot of things in C/C++ (such as the use of { }, or // for commets ) that do not work in Fortran. 

> 
> On the other hand, at the same meeting
> there was some angry reaction
> from the users on the J3 decision
> to reject auto (re)allocation on READ,
> despite it scoring high in N2147.
> The justification given in
> https://j3-fortran.org/doc/year/18/minutes215.txt
> was seen too harsh and dismissive by some:
> 
>       18-135  "Use cases for unallocated list item in READ statement"
>                This was broken out from allocatables in ERRMSG, IOMSG.
>                Discussion items:  Definite performance issue, as it
>                would require double-reading.   Appreciate the goal, but
>                seems unrealistic.  List directed could be a problem.
>                Format reversion would be a problem. Simple would be 
>                valuable, but complicated could be very complicated
>                   SV:  0 - 8 - 4
> 
> They wonder why a limited "simple” facility

It is not clear what is meant by “simple” here.  

Cheers,
Bill


> cannot be implemented which, as DATA agreed,
> would be valuable.
> 
> Anton

Bill Long                                                                       longb at cray.com
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