Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 exptools; site ho95e.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!prls!amdimage!amdcad!amd!vecpyr!lll-crg!gymble!umcp-cs!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!harpo!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!ho95e!wcs From: wcs@ho95e.UUCP (x0705) Newsgroups: net.lang Subject: Re: What language do you use for scientific programming? Message-ID: <163@ho95e.UUCP> Date: Wed, 14-Aug-85 21:29:11 EDT Article-I.D.: ho95e.163 Posted: Wed Aug 14 21:29:11 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 02:31:30 EDT References: <909@oddjob.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ Lines: 27 > > I've been curious for a while what scientist/engineering types on the net > use for scientific programming. I know the low regard in which fortran is > held by the systems types on the net, but I haven't found anything better > than fortran to use. > [C has], clumsy i/o, and no > exponentiation operator. > The advantages of fortran in my opinion are 1. > at least two real precisions > 2. standard and powerful i/o routines, and 3. > very wide availability with > great portability (because of the existance of a standard for the language). > Is there any other language which shares these > properties but also has some of the constructs I would like to use (while, > do ... while, case, structures, pointers). Perhaps the answer is fortran > itself; what new features does the upcoming revision to the fortran standard > have? > Paul Schinder uucp: ..!ihnp4!oddjob!paul arpa: oddjob!paul@lbl-csam.arpa Well, at least use RATFOR ( a preprocessor ) or full-scale Fortran-77 instead of generic fortran, so you can have control structures. I find the biggest weaknesses fortran has for scientific programming are: - no recursion - makes everything tough, especially multiple integration - no dynamically dimensioned arrays ( though C is kind of clumsy also) - clumsy input, though this is less important for scientific prog. On the other hand, complex arithmetic in C is really annoying. However, the C++ language lets you define objects like complex numbers, expontentiation, lets you define better output routines, etc. -- ## Bill Stewart, AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ 1-201-949-0705 ihnp4!ho95c!wcs