topic Re: Fortran Compilers and Microsoft .NET in Software Archive

Fortran Compilers and Microsoft .NET

Intel_C_Intel — Thu, 13 Dec 2001 07:18:59 GMT

Couple of questions:

1. Are there plans or any kind of roadmap on when (and if) the Fortran compiler will be able to create Microsoft Intermediate Language (IL) output or Common Language Runtime (CLR) output usable?

2. Given that question 1 may or may not have an answer, what is the time frame for getting the compiler integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio 7 (the .NET version)? This can be either the compiler as is (without native .NET support, just producing the output as is now) or with the new CLR output.

Best Regards,
Dean Kassmann

Re: Fortran Compilers and Microsoft .NET

Steven_L_Intel1 — Thu, 13 Dec 2001 08:46:49 GMT

1. Nothing we can say at this time.

2. MS is not allowing vendors to ship products integrated with the VS7 shell until three months after retail release of VS7, which hasn't happened yet. I expect it will be a bit beyond that. We'll comment in public when we are more certain of schedules.

Steve

Re: Fortran Compilers and Microsoft .NET

njuffa — Fri, 14 Dec 2001 17:33:40 GMT

I am not sure I would want the CVF team to spend lots of time integrating with .NET
by outputting MSIL from the compiler for JIT compilation by the CLR platform. What
specific advantages would that have that can not be more easily achieved with a
different language? A number of questions come to mind:

1. Is MSIL sufficiently flexible to allow for efficient implementation of all Fortran95
features? Did Microsoft specify MSIL with Fortran in mind? I have my doubts as
Microsoft hasn't cared for Fortran in years. Maybe some Fortan95 features
are almost impossible to map to MSIL.
2. Conversely, how much in terms of extensions must be added to Fortran95 to
allow access to all important .NET features?
3. Given that MSIL uses a JIT approach, I think it is highly unlikely that performance
can keep up with native code for type of applications commonly programmed
in Fortran95. Unlike some other languages performance of executables has
been an important issue for Fortran compilers from the very beginning of the
language. MS has a limited interest in performance issues and these days
seems to be primarily occupied with giving us the next generation of dancing
paper clips.

-- Norbert