why fortran mailing list?

[Steve Kargl]

On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 09:20:46AM +0100, Anton Shterenlikht wrote:
> 	From sgk at troutmask.apl.washington.edu Wed Jul 10 00:33:37 2013
> 
> 	On Tue, Jul 09, 2013 at 07:24:12PM -0400, Christopher J. Umina wrote:
> 	> Fortran is pretty much a standard in the scientific world and I for
> 	> one have been quite upset about the fact that I'm constantly forced
> 	> away from FreeBSD for such things. Needless to say I was quite
> 	> surprised that a list was created specifically for Fortran discussion,
> 	> but I'm also very excited to see the level of interest in the
> 	> community.
> 	> 
> 
> 	Please, don't top-post, it looses context.  In fact, I've
> 	deleted all of the previous context. :-)
> 
> 	Not sure why you're forced away from FreeBSD because of
> 	Fortran.  gfortran has been a part of GCC since 2005.
> 	Although the first year or two of gfortran's life saw a
> 	large number of bugsi and patches, since gcc 4.4,x ori
> 	4.5.x, she's been a very good compiler.
> 
> Right now I need coarrays, so I have to use other compilers
> on linux.

gfortran has single-image co-array support.  As you know, 
Tobias has slowly been working on co-arrays, and IIRC the
only missing functionality is runtime support.  He could
use some help writing that support, so now is your chance
to contribute.

> But a compiler alone is not enough.
> I need a complete tightly integrated fortran
> environment, with libraries and applications.

Then, you're on your own.  The FreeBSD ports collection
cannot provide the tight integration that you desire.

> Many libs/apps available on linux are not
> in ports yet. One example is Trilinos,
> http://trilinos.sandia.gov/packages/fortrilinos/.
> I think bf@ has been working on a port.
> But there are more, I just can't think of
> any at the moment.

Why wait for a port to appear in the Port Collection.
Grab the code you need and build it.

> Then there are things like legacy code.
> For example, I myself maintain math/slatec,
> which is 1980-1990 fortran 77 library
> with over 1400 subroutines.
> I found this library useful at some point.
> But the code is old and completely unmaintained,
> perhaps there are better newer alternatives.
> Should it stay in ports for now? 

Of course.  Why remove a functioning port?  The
beauty of old (standard conforming) Fortran coder
is that it will compile with modern Fortran compilers.

-- 
Steve