🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2581@l.cc.purdue.edu> cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>Why is there an absolute value function rather than an absolute value
>operator?  Only because when Fortran was written, they were limited to
>a 48 character set (IBM punched cards, at the time).  This is also why
>** was used for exponentiation, and even * for multiplication.  I have
>used a dialect of Fortran which overloaded some of the "standard" functions,
>so that absolute value, logarithm, mod, etc., did not have to have any modifier
>indicating the type(s) of the arguments.  The compiler did the appropriate
>analysis.

Uhhh... Isn't this just what the FORTRAN 77 standard dictates?  (Yes, I
know about the exceptions.  I mean in the usual case where I say, for
instance, a = sin(b) and the types of both a and b are well-defined.)

                                Just asking...

				Marc R. Roussel
                                mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca