How do i allocate an array of strings?

[epagone]

@everythingfunctional

It kind of depends on your definition of “modern”, and your definition of “first class”. I.e. many people would consider C++ a “modern” language, but it’s not “first class” there, it’s in the standard library, i.e. std::string. And in all “modern” languages I know of it’s pretty clear that the intrinsic string type is just a convenience to not have to explicitly deal with the fact it is a pointer to a char[].

Ok, I’ll define more specifically “first class”: for me it’s “very low barrier to access the feature”. In your C++ example, it’s very easy and “varying strings” are almost immediately available. I wish the same was available in Fortran with a comparable effort.

@everythingfunctional

Why should any type be different than integer? Why did we need type() at all? Maybe that part was a mistake?

Because type() marks clearly that’s a user-defined data type: it’s helpful. Not a mistake at all, in my book.

@everythingfunctional

But we are where we are, and if you want consistency, type(integer) is already valid.

Apart from the fact that I wouldn’t be exactly thrilled to clutter my code with type(integer) declarations, as explained above, the distinction between basic and user-defined, “bespoke” data types it’s useful for code readability and maintenance.