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From: mff@wuphys.UUCP (Swamp Thing)
Newsgroups: net.lang.lisp,net.lang
Subject: Re: What language do you use for scientific programming?
Message-ID: <356@wuphys.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-Aug-85 12:44:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: wuphys.356
Posted: Fri Aug 23 12:44:44 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Aug-85 06:24:33 EDT
References: <909@oddjob.UUCP> <147@rtp47.UUCP>
Reply-To: mff@wuphys.UUCP (Swamp Thing)
Distribution: net
Organization: Physics Dept., Washington Univ. in St. Louis
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Xref: watmath net.lang.lisp:529 net.lang:1730

In article <147@rtp47.UUCP> vollum@rtp47.UUCP (Rob Vollum) writes:
>Concerning efficiency, there is no reason, given improved compilers that
>handle type-inferencing and type-propagation, for example, that
>compiled Common Lisp can't be as fast as compiled anything else in most
>cases; certainly in most 'simple' numerical applications that would
>be handled by a Fortan program (simple here means 32-bit integer or
>single- or double-precision arithmetic).
>-- 
>Rob Vollum
>Data General Corp.
>Research Triangle Park, NC
>!mcnc!rti-sel!rtp47!vollum

Most people are concerned with what's available now, not what will be available
sometime, mabye.

As for the original question, most scientists I know crunch there numbers in
Fortran (myself included, although I've done some other programing in C).  Most
people who have switched to C now consider Fortran to be slime.  And most
people who refuse to program in C have never done so.  (This all applies to
people I know, not in general).  F66 certainly had it's problems, most notably
a serious lack of control strucures.  F77 is much better.

As a side note, while we've all heard that the Cray-2 will be running Unix, the
one curently running at Livermore is not (it has the same operating system as
the Cray-1's there) and all the number crunching will still be done in Fortran.
There will be a C compiler for support of the Unix system.  I suspect that it
will be a long time before someone comes up with a C compiler that's as
vectorizing and as optimized as the Fortran compilers that they use.

						Mark F. Flynn
						Department of Physics
						Washington University
						St. Louis, MO  63130
						ihnp4!wuphys!mff

"There is no dark side of the moon, really.
 Matter of fact, it's all dark."

				P. Floyd