Removing [--standard.pascal] invalidates who knows how many existing scripts and makefiles.

Exactly. Why break old code?

If anything I would recommend retaining the present directives and adding "ISO7185-0", "ISO7185-1" and "ISO10206". However I don't expect that to happen. So this is purely my vote against deleting the present directives.

I would vote for this!! But please leave the old definitions and clarify what they are precisely using ISO numbers. That information is not in the info gpc documentation (first few pages).

Source that is valid under 7185-0 should be valid everywhere (in the best of all possible worlds, Dr. Pangloss). I want to encourage such as far as possible. Use of any extensions beyond that causes portability problems somewhere or other.

Absolutely!!

The message from Dr. Thomas Schneider mailto:toms@ncifcrf.gov is indicative of the problems that deletion would cause. He obviously does not have an info installation, or it is obsolete, or he is unaware of it.

I was aware of it but don't think to use it. I find it awkward and complex compared to web pages, man pages, help flags, xman ... Thanks for the tip.

He may be using scripts set up by personnel who have long since moved on.

I write the scripts myself but prefer not to have to muck with them. We could upgrade to the latest version but I try to stick to the standard so if it is supported I don't have to keep running to stay in place. If you drop --standard.pascal that will break the copies of my compile script that other people have. This would force me to make a variant of the script that figures out the version of gpc and then calls gpc the right way so that it does not bomb! How silly.

Hidebound people such as myself view with horror any changes to installed software, especially any lack of backward compatibility.

Agreed.

Tom

Dr. Thomas D. Schneider National Cancer Institute Laboratory of Experimental and Computational Biology Frederick, Maryland 21702-1201 toms@ncifcrf.gov permanent email: toms@alum.mit.edu (use only if first address fails) http://www.lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/