Adding UNION/MAP -- Feedback and tips pls!

[Russell Brennan]

> I agree.  If we allow UNION/MAP, it should be behind a compile time option
> like the one for CRAY pointers; its rationale being to help people to move
> from the vendor specific extension to standard Fortran.
I don't see any harm in UNION/MAP being allowed by default.  It is a
very useful construct and I would liken it to the C construct of a
union of structs.  Whether or not unions are good programming practice
is another story, but I maintain that they are a valuable addition to
the language even if only properly used in the hands of skilled
developers.

I agree that only "%" syntax should be allowed although the intel
fortran compiler handles both "%" and "." with no difficulty; I am
sure they invested a good amount of time ensuring that it works
properly, but since it is easy to fix up existing code to use "%" I
don't find it a valuable use of time to implement.