Even more conversion & Fortran blather

[David Keaton]

>[Tim Peters]
>To David K:  I don't have any burning interest in the networking issues
>but I imagine we're both interested in the problems that arise when
>running on a single machine.  I *know* I've been burned any number of
>times by pasting a CFT output into a CAL CON, or by plugging a
>20-place value for a constant out of a book into a PARAMETER statement
>(& in a recent mailing Cody mentioned a similar real problem with C's
>#include files), or by printing a number out & reading it in later ...
>and in all these cases (& more) not getting what I expected.  Even
>worse, over the years CRI has fiddled with the accuracy of its
>conversion routines, so the values of decimal constants in CAL & CFT
>etc have, from time to time, magically "changed" even when I never
>touched the source!  I believe that perfect conversions supply a
>complete remedy to all these headaches at one stroke, and that would
>have real value for me (depending on the cost <grin>).  How about you?
>I cheerfully confess the idea continues to grow on me.

     I don't dispute that these problems exist.  In fact, I would
prefer perfect conversions personally.  But none of the problems we
have discussed outweigh performance until most Cray-class customers
tell me they do.  The marketplace is simply telling me "Don't fix this
unless you can do it without hurting performance."

     Now, it is possible that an implementation will be found that
does not affect performance.  In that case, all my objections vanish.

					David Keaton
					Cray Computer
					dmkacraycos.com