[J3] [EXTERNAL] Re: John Rice's 1981 proposal for RANGE variables

[Bill Long]

The more obvious question remains:  In almost 40 years since the proposal from Rice, has any still-used language included it as a built-in feature?  Or has the collective wisdom of decades been that the answer is NO for this feature.  Barring some significant change in the hardware landscape, at some point you have to declare failure and move on. 

Cheers,
Bill


> On May 15, 2019, at 1:49 AM, Van Snyder via J3 <j3 at mailman.j3-fortran.org> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 2019-05-15 at 15:37 +0900, Malcolm Cohen via J3 wrote:
>> IDENTIFY and RANGE were in Fortran 8X, and were comprehensively
>> rejected by the Fortran community in 1988, as being too unwieldy and
>> too complicated for the perceived benefit thereof.
> 
> My recollection is that the RANGE that was in Fortran 8x was different
> from what John Rice proposed in 1981.  The RANGE in Fortran 8x implied
> that an array had a descriptor, essentially the same as a pointer
> descriptor, that carried its currently-interesting bounds, independently
> from it's actual bounds.  A pointer, allocatable, or assumed-shape dummy
> with the RANGE attribute would have two such descriptors.
> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> 
>> -- 
>> 
>> ..............Malcolm Cohen, NAG Oxford/Tokyo.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> From: J3 <j3-bounces at mailman.j3-fortran.org> On Behalf Of Van Snyder
>> via J3
>> Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2019 10:10 AM
>> To: j3 <j3 at j3-fortran.org>
>> Cc: Van Snyder <Van.Snyder at jpl.nasa.gov>
>> Subject: [J3] John Rice's 1981 proposal for RANGE variables
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> In 1981, John Rice proposed RANGE variables.
>> 
>> These are in many respects similar to my proposal for a SECTION type.
>> 
>> I put Johns paper in the Tutorials folder, with the name
>> Rice-1981.pdf.
>> 
>> Van
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 

Bill Long                                                                       longb at cray.com
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