[photran] looking for ideas for Fortran refactorings

[Ralph Johnson <johnson@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

This semester, I am teaching a software engineering class, and the
class project is to add a feature to Photran, usually a refactoring.
The class is big enough this semester to add about 15 features.  The
quality will vary, of course, but a lot of them will be good enough to
use.  The class has 4-person groups, I assign each feature to two
independent groups, and the class has 120 students, about 30 groups.
Most of the features will be new refactorings.

Mario Mendez keeps a list of Fortran refactorings at
http://www.fortranrefactoring.com.ar that contains the ones that are
in Photran as well as ones that someone would like to be in Photran.
We will use this list as a source for projects.   If you would like to
propose a refactoring, please write up something and send it to Mario
and have it put on the list.

if you *really* want to make sure that a refactoring gets implemented,
offer to be a "customer".  We need people who can write test cases in
Fortran.  The test cases don't have to be big, but they need to show
the complexities of the problem.  Most of the students in the class
know Java, but very few of them know Fortran.  So, if you are a
Fortran programmer then you can help by lending your Fortran
expertise.  The class is over the first week in December, and the
students will get started on the project midway through October, so
you will need to have the Fortran examples ready in a month or so, and
will find out if the students were successful pretty fast.

If you have ideas for refactorings, send them to Mario at his web
site.   If you want to provide some test cases for these refactorings
and talk to students about them, please contact me.

-Ralph Johnson