Gfortran packaging and installation

[Mark Hadfield <m dot hadfield at niwa dot co dot nz>]

Francois's release yesterday of a Mingw version of gfortran set off a 
flurry of emails on this list and comp.lang.fortran, one to which I have 
contributed (constructively, I hope). I sympathise with Francois, who 
has copped some flak when he was just trying to be helpful, but I also 
sympathise to some extent with the complainers, who encountered 
obstacles they weren't anticipating when they were trying to test a new 
compiler.

May I make a suggestion: even though gfortran is alpha-quality regarding 
its ability to compile Fortran code, it is worth putting some effort 
right now into making installation as smooth as possible for non-expert 
users on a range of different platforms (Linux, of course, but also 
Windows and Mac OS-X). The reason is something I mentioned yesterday: 
there are Fortran experts who use these platforms and can contribute 
with high-quality bug reports, but who don't have the patience or 
inclination to grapple with arcane installation details.

I am willing (and possibly able) to help with this for Mingw and Cygwin 
Windows versions.

Me, I still can't use gfortran for anything much because it won't 
compile my code (in Linux, Cygwin and Mingw versions). I get internal 
compiler errors (segmentation faults) at random locations. I would 
submit a bug report, but right now I have no idea how to narrow the 
problem down to a simple case.


--
Mark Hadfield            "Ka puwaha te tai nei, Hoea tatou"
m.hadfield@niwa.co.nz
National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA)