`block` syntax and my confusion

[Beliavsky]

@bwe

@sblionel

I also would consider scattered declarations to be poor programming practice, and I would think poorly of any programmer who wrote code that way.

This is how it’s done in almost any other non-Fortran language. Everyone else are poor programmers?

I think a lot of the legacy Fortran I work on would’ve been cleaner if the original programmers had been able to quickly declare and use some local variables. Just a simple…

integer,parameter :: TIME_CHAN = 27
integer,parameter :: SPEED_CHAN = 7

… above a block of code would mean a lot more to me than wondering what the code is doing with DAT(27) and DAT(7). I understand why the original programmers didn’t scroll hundreds of lines away just to declare a named variable to only use for a small block of code in the middle of the file, but it makes my life harder now.

There can be a lot of clarity gained by having variables declared close to where they’re used. It can be (1) easier to define and use them, and (2) clearer what exactly they’re used for.

You can effectively define parameters (variables that cannot be changed) in the middle of a program using ASSOCIATE, for example

associate (TIME_CHAN => 27, SPEED_CHAN => 7)

I have suggested that the requirement for ASSOCIATE to be paired with END ASSOCIATE be removed, to make using ASSOCIATE more convenient.