Re: Fortran 9x: time for a decision

[Steven G. Johnson]

I should also add that I'm willing to implement this in autoconf (say 
next weekend; I'll be gone this week) if Akim et al. agree that it (or 
something similar) is the way to go.

Regarding automake, I would think that the ordinary behavior would be to 
use $F77 for {.f, .F, .for, .f77} and $FXX for everything else (.f90, 
.f95, etc. [*]).  However, if the configure.ac calls AC_PROG_FXX and not 
AC_PROG_F77, then automake should use $FXX for everything.  Rationale:

	-- if the user calls AC_PROG_F77, $F77 should be used for backwards 
compatibility, and to provide a way to use the F77 compiler for old 
codes in mixed-dielect projects.

	-- it is good to support using $FXX for everything, especially for 
cases where the F77 and FXX compilers may not be compatible.

	-- it is good to allow users of the simple .f extension to employ the 
newer compilers and language features if they choose.  Free .f from the 
tyranny of 1977!  =)

        -- AC_PROG_FXX(77) will give the F77 compiler anyway.

Steven

[*] Does anyone know what filename extension is proposed, if any, for 
Fortran 2000?  .f2k?  I don't know how people can continue this trend 
indefinitely, at least with the Windows cultural bias of at most 
3-character extensions.