Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!vaxine!wjh12!genrad!decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary From: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP Newsgroups: net.lang,net.physics,net.micro.pc Subject: Why FORTRAN Message-ID: <2735@ecsvax.UUCP> Date: Sun, 17-Jun-84 20:58:05 EDT Article-I.D.: ecsvax.2735 Posted: Sun Jun 17 20:58:05 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 19-Jun-84 01:41:25 EDT Lines: 54 <> >From: anand@utastro.UUCP Mon Jun 11 08:05:01 1984 > >My recommendation is DON'T GET UNIX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! > >A lot of scientists still use FORTRAN, so a shaky, unreliable >f77 compiler is a severe drawback, and I believe a scientific, heavily >arithmetically oriented department cannot afford to base its computation >on UNIX's FORTRAN. >From: elt@astrovax.UUCP Tue Jun 12 10:47:25 1984 >The best solution, in my opinion, is to switch to C thus getting a good >compiler and a superior language; to the extent that the new f77 compiler >motivates people to do this, it may be a good thing. Incidentally, the >advantage to a physical scientist of a computer language superior to >FORTRAN is analogus to the advantages of a superior mathematical notation. > >Of course, switching to C cannot be the whole solution given the existence >of enormous amounts of useful FORTRAN code, portability requirements, and >the fact that some people simply won't switch. There must be a substantial >amount of money to be made by producing a first class FORTRAN compiler that >runs under 4.2. Having spent a good portion of the last decade giving hell to physicists for using FORTRAN, I'm a little sheepish about coming to its defense. It is certainly true that FORTRAN is an awful language from many standpoints. It is also true that a good part of the reluctance to switch from FORTRAN to something better is plain old inertia. But I have reservations about C being better than FORTRAN for scientific programming. In fact, I don't know of anything better than FORTRAN for scientific programming (he said, crawling into his well-protected bunker). FORTRAN is unique among modern programming languages of any wide use and acceptance in that it is specifically designed for numeric programming. It has an exponentiation operator (**). It has a large, STANDARD set of function names for widely-used functions. (I consider this its single greatest strength, by the way.) It has an immense body of non-standard but widely available, pre-coded scientific functions (IMSL, for instance). The only competition I see on the horizon is (heaven help us) Ada. If you are aware of a language (other than Ada or PL/I) that does numerical programming as well as FORTRAN, please, PLEASE tell me. In the meantime, a good preprocessor for FORTRAN 77 may be the best thing for scientific programmers to use. Defensively, D Gary Grady Duke University Computation Center, Durham, NC 27706 (919) 684-4146 USENET: {decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary