Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ames.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!mhuxn!mhuxr!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!hao!ames!eugene From: eugene@ames.UUCP (Eugene Miya) Newsgroups: net.lang Subject: Re: What language do you use for scientific programming? Message-ID: <1098@ames.UUCP> Date: Wed, 21-Aug-85 13:22:56 EDT Article-I.D.: ames.1098 Posted: Wed Aug 21 13:22:56 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 17:18:08 EDT References: <909@oddjob.UUCP> <163@ho95e.UUCP> <367@ttrdc.UUCP> Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA Lines: 32 Some time ago, a person posted a small FORTRAN program, and I blew up at a comment along the lines "you can see why I used FORTRAN." I tend to like C. I try to use C on the Cray, VAX, PDP, and other machines I use. I am forced to use FORTRAN on some Cray applications because it is the only language with multiprocessor support currently. I hear the Cray Pascal is decent, but have not used it. C is far from perfect [apologies to dutoit!dmr], but I like it for getting the job done. There are features in many other languages I would not mind having: operator overloading would be nice for complex or quaterions in C, some protection and structuring features of CLU, better interfaces to things like graphics, monitoring, and debugging [some of this bordering closer to hardware], but these are all syntaxtic or semantic sugar to C. The problem is that lots of problems are not language related, or a different smaller specialized language would do the job better. Otherwise, if you look at it, there is very little difference whether you program in Pascal, FORTRAN, C, ... and stretching it: even LISP and PROLOG. You can include specialized packages in this category, too: SPSS, BMDP, and so forth. Just more of the same. The problems come with moving data around between these different systems: hence, good programming environments. It just so happens that FORTRAN is not enough of such an environment to do this moving. There is no one perfect language for `scientific programing.' You might argue that English or German is the perfect scientific language to discuss this in. --eugene miya NASA Ames Research Center {hplabs,ihnp4,dual,hao,decwrl,allegra}!ames!aurora!eugene emiya@ames-vmsb