Date   : Thu, 23 May 1985 20:30:00 EST
From   : brake@ari-hq1.ARPA
Subject: FORTRAN-77

One word of caution on FORTRAN 77. People who use F77 on DEC machines
are spoiled. The F77 compiler on these machines is a SUPERset of the
language. I made the mistake of thinking that it was close to the
standard and estimated the development effort to convert some code from
a VAX to a Honeywell DPS 6/92. After finding out that much of the code
would not compile, I ordered the F77 standard document. I found that
the Honeywell just barely met the standard. Also, I found that FORTRAN
4+ on DEC machines was a nicer language than standard F77. The point
is that you should look at the features of the implementation and
not to assume that all F77 compilers are the same.


Dennis [BRAKE@ARI-HQ1]