Xref: utzoo comp.lang.fortran:743 comp.lang.c:10687 Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!killer!ames!amdahl!rtech!wrs!owen From: owen@wrs.UUCP (Owen DeLong) Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.c Subject: Re: Should I convert FORTRAN code to C? Keywords: language conversions, FORTRAN, c Message-ID: <533@wrs.UUCP> Date: 9 Jun 88 02:14:46 GMT References: <2742@utastro.UUCP> Reply-To: owen@wrs.UUCP (Owen DeLong) Organization: Wind River Systems, Emeryville, CA Lines: 46 In article <2742@utastro.UUCP> rlr@utastro.UUCP (Randy Ricklefs) writes: >We will soon start porting software from a number of different sources to a >micro-processor-based UNIX system. Most of the code is in various dialects >of FORTRAN. The question that arises is whether to convert all this stuff >to a more modern language, particularly c. This suggests several questions >which I hope the NET readers will help answer (without starting a 100-years >war on languages ... please! :-) ): Ahh, Why not? Language wars are so much fun.... You get to tie up so many peoples telebits with such garbage, and everyone can flame you... :-) >1) Are people actually initiating new projects in FORTRAN, or are they > maintaining and porting old FORTRAN code? Some, but that's just because they haven't ported their programmers to c yet. >2) Does the answer to 1) change if we restrict discussion to PC's & Macs? Yes, more Mac and PC programmers have been ported to c than in the system 3 environment. (What, you mean someone besides IBM makes computers? :-) >3) Is c a suitable replacement for FORTRAN in terms of mathematical capabil- > ities and portablility? Absolutely not, for this, you need COBOL! :-)... Seriously, I wouldn't wish COBOL on my worst enemy. >4) Are there reliable FORTRAN to c translators available under MS-DOS or UNIX > that will allow moving over to c without re-coding the world? I haven't seen anything. There was a review of FORTRAN to LISP converters in Computer Language once, I think, and the author there basically said he hadn't seen any inter-language translator he found to be reliable. > >Thanks in advance for the help! > >Randy > I hope some of this is helpful, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to poke fun at a language that should have died before assembly was born. Owen Disclaimer: WRS won't give me execute access to cc yet.