Fred and Dave Taylor are both right (see the December 2012 issue's Letters
section).
The F77 standard—ANSI X3.9-1978
ISO 1539-1980 (E)—says 1–6 characters
using a–z and 0–9, but it also says
that “Blanks are used to improve readability,
but unless otherwise noted have no significance.”
In other words, it is generally legal F77
to use spaces in names and keywords to decrease readability!
Try p r int * , 6 6 (yes, with spaces liberally interspersed)!
—
dandeljx
One topic that would be very helpful if it were discussed in an article is the installation procedure in modern notebooks. The new UEFI stuff and Windows 8 are making it very difficult to install a dual-boot on a notebook with Windows pre-installed. There are no clear or detailed solutions on the Web, so a good article explaining this would help us a lot.
Thanks, and keep up the good work!
—
Toshiro
Great suggestion Toshiro, thanks! We'll see what we can do.—Ed.
I liked the print version but was forced to change. The NOOK 7"
display was too small, and I didn't want to spend an outrageous amount
of money for a 10" tablet. But, I found a cheap Android tablet from China on eBay, and it
works great. I have changed all of my magazine subscriptions to digital.
The only disadvantage is not being able to tear out the pages of
interesting articles. Now I am waiting for an issue on how to hack it
and convert it to a Linux distro of my liking.
—
Jon GrosJean
Great to hear Jon. I find the PDF version a bit too small on my 7" tablet too. I might have to look for an inexpensive 10" model for the same reason. Thanks for the idea!—Ed.
In the Letters section of the December 2012 issue, Dave Taylor and reader Fred
comment on FORTRAN and F77 variable names. Although what they write may
have been correct for FORTRAN 77 or F77, the present Fortran standard
(Fortran 2003) is much more flexible. The name of an entity may consist
of between 1 and 31 alphanumeric characters (letters, underscores and
numerals) of which the first must be a letter. For example,
time_of_flight
is a valid name. This is just one of the many enhancements that make the
present Fortran standard a modern language. As a final comment, since the
95 standard, the official name is with a capital (F) followed by lowercase letters
(ortran).
—
Nuno Pinhao
Dave Taylor replies: Indeed. I'll have to brush up my Algol-68 too, at this rate.
I find it discouraging to have several great options for Linux in public school classrooms only to have it dashed by both sides of the aisles. I have long advocated for Linux to come into play in the States and help build repair facilities to facilitate incomes. More and more, I am finding it increasingly stressful in Maine to watch as we spend millions repairing Windows and Macintosh systems along with iPad tablets. It is truthfully frustrating to advocate systems I've been using for the past six years—Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, VectorLinux and countless others—only to have them waived off as “not being user-friendly”. I'm not a coder. I'm a poet and a writer. So, if I can use these systems, a school can use these systems as well. They can assign different run users, different groups and different networking settings. I've also been witnessing the ignorance of my own party it develops a draconian philosophy of removing computers completely.
It's the brush off that is the most stressful, however—to advocate, voice it and e-mail the governor of my state and be given blank responses. There is truthfully nothing that gets done as far as bringing Linux to the classroom. People look at the budgets, I look at the budgets, and we see a magic line of slashing budgets.
I say, instead of the magic line of slashing budgets, advocate for Linux
companies to come to the State or area where you live. People say Linux
is to hard to use or to use systems from the Windows 98-era.
That is not how it works. What we are doing with Apple and Microsoft is
hamstringing and confining parents, teachers and our state budgets to a
massive monopoly. The game board is rigged, and ever since NVIDIA became
a silent partner to Microsoft, the rules have been changing continually
for users on a budget. I want people to realize that they can speak up,
that they can bring the change, and that they can bring jobs using Linux.
—
Joseph Ziehmer
Joseph, as someone who has worked in education for almost 20 years now, I feel your pain. Thankfully, in my last position, I was able to use LTSP and Linux thin clients to save significant money while providing a user-friendly experience for our students. Sadly, that's the exception rather than the rule. I think as a community we need to continue touting the benefits while at the same time avoiding “trash talking” the opposition. I've found the negative campaign method seems to make people defensive and less likely to try Linux at all. Good luck, and keep fighting the good fight.—Ed.
I was looking at implementing it, but I see that Wunderlist2 does not have a
native application for Linux, so that goes in the round can. It's funny that they can
do it for iOS and Android, both of which descend from either BSD or Linux,
but they cannot do a new one for Linux. Oh yes, they have a Windows app
too. If the Web app is so good, how come they need native apps for the
other platforms?
—
Chuck Hast
This seems to be how things go for me. I recently wrote about Wunderlist and its native Linux client, and then they release version 2 with no Linux client. My only hope is that the Linux version eventually will come out. As it is now, I have significant egg on my face.—Ed.
Regarding Doc Searls' article “Heavy Backup Weather” in the
October 2012 issue,
I've been using CrashPlan (www.crashplan.com) for the
past three years, both
for on and offsite backups. Aside from its Java requirement, it's been
great.
—
Gerry Normandin
Doc Searls replies: Sounds good. I'll give it a try.
Shawn Powers replies: I completely agree! I don't even mind the Java-based front end, but I certainly wish the dæmon itself was running something other than Java. It's one of those programs that works so well, I tolerate Java.
This is in response to Doug's letter in the January 2013 issue's Letters section titled “More-Advanced Articles”.
First, I echo Doug's praise. Linux Journal keeps me up to date.
Second, perhaps instead of trying to balance your articles between beginner
or novice-level articles and more-advanced articles in one magazine, you
could have a second magazine. “Advanced Linux Journal”sounds good to me.
I would pay for a subscription to a second magazine.
—
harleypig
It's definitely something to consider. If the demand is high enough, perhaps it could happen someday!—Ed.
