Should I convert FORTRAN code to C?

[Doug Gwyn]

In article <238 at chem.ucsd.EDU> tps at chem.ucsd.edu (Tom Stockfisch) writes:
>Considering the viability of this scheme (that does not require
>reservation of any library names) and the undesirability of
>ecologically disastrous name-space pollution, does anyone know
>why the ANSI C committee chose to reserve all these names?

Three things.  First, the Standard cannot mandate an approach such as you
described.  Such invocation details are not within the proper scope of
the Standard.

Second, X3J11 has been quite aware of name space pollution issues and has
carefully limited the extent to which a C implementation can infringe on
the application's name space, for the first time in history.

Third, many C library routines are most conveniently implemented if they
are allowed to call other standard library routines.  The simplest way to
enable that is to reserve ALL the standard names for the implementation.

As an application programmer I think this is the correct approach.
I do not WANT an application to replace a standard library routine with
one of its own.  That way lies danger.