According to Niocl s P¢l Caile n de Ghloucester <thanks-to@Taf.com>:

I want to quote an old comp.compilers post by its moderator about how
FORTRAN programmers are not bothered to consult the FORTRAN standard
(circa FORTRAN-66) so they insist that they know FORTRAN when they do
not, so a new FORTRAN standard (circa FORTRAN-77) made a >backwards-incompatible change to accept this wrong belief of what
FORTRAN really is. Alas searching for it takes too long (the 3 search
options offered by

I'm pretty sure I didn't say that. Possibly someone else did but I don't recall that either. In fact F77 tried hard to stay compatible with F66 and
the few incompatibilities were well documented and had good rationales.

--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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In article <10lm24t$iqv$1@gal.iecc.com>, John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote: >According to Niocl s P¢l Caile n de Ghloucester <thanks-to@Taf.com>:

I want to quote an old comp.compilers post by its moderator about how >>FORTRAN programmers are not bothered to consult the FORTRAN standard
(circa FORTRAN-66) so they insist that they know FORTRAN when they do
not, so a new FORTRAN standard (circa FORTRAN-77) made a >>backwards-incompatible change to accept this wrong belief of what
FORTRAN really is. Alas searching for it takes too long (the 3 search >>options offered by

I'm pretty sure I didn't say that. Possibly someone else did but I don't >recall that either. In fact F77 tried hard to stay compatible with F66 and >the few incompatibilities were well documented and had good rationales.

In 1990 I led a project with Shell. All calculations were still required to
use FORTRAN IV. Because there was substantial graphics involved we got dispensation to use c on VMS. (Using transputers, also occam was allowed.) Compatibility was a priority.

John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",

Groetjes Albert
--
The Chinese government is satisfied with its military superiority over USA.
The next 5 year plan has as primary goal to advance life expectancy
over 80 years, like Western Europe.

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On 2/1/2026 2:11 PM, albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl wrote:

I'm pretty sure I didn't say that. Possibly someone else did but I don't
recall that either. In fact F77 tried hard to stay compatible with F66 and >> the few incompatibilities were well documented and had good rationales.

In 1990 I led a project with Shell. All calculations were still required to use FORTRAN IV. Because there was substantial graphics involved we got dispensation to use c on VMS. (Using transputers, also occam was allowed.) Compatibility was a priority.

In software, compatibility is the bane of good design. Just because
something made sense for a particular project, doesn't mean it
makes sense for YOUR project.

Or, if it is even "best practices" any longer.

I chuckle when I think of how many devices using Linux kernels
are carrying the cost of file system support when they likely
never would have put "support for a filesystem" on their list
of requirements.

And, when the whole notion of a global namespace actually makes
their design LESS secure/robust!

(And ACLs? etc. Really?? All that extra, UNNEEDED code that
just makes your product buggier and more bloated...)


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