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From: James Giles on 5 Jul 2008 02:37
New intrinsic procedures

There are a large number of new intrinsic functions in the
proposed new standard. In the last few standards there have
been a few as well. But in the past many of the new names
were long and unlikely to cause legacy codes any naming
conflicts. Sure, some (like NEW_LINE) were problematical,
but most were not. That is not the case in this revision.

I think most of the new intrinsic functions should be placed
in one or more intrinsic modules rather than joining the
"pervasive" category of names (those that are visible every-
where unless explicitly hidden by an explicit declaration).
Sure, the author of that old legacy code should have used
an EXTERNAL declaration for all his functions. But how many
actually have?

In fact, I think the committee should set a policy that no
new intrinsics will be added to the pervasive namespace in
the future. All new intrinsics should be in intrinsic
modules - starting with f2008.

--
J. Giles

"I conclude that there are two ways of constructing a software
design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously
no deficiencies and the other way is to make it so complicated
that there are no obvious deficiencies." -- C. A. R. Hoare

"Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability" -- E. W. Dijkstra


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