Xref: utzoo comp.lang.misc:1896 comp.lang.fortran:1173
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ncar!ames!eos!eugene
From: eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: why column arrays in Fortran (was opinions on computer languages)
Summary: Gospel, God speaks, this space for rent
Message-ID: <1544@eos.UUCP>
Date: 18 Sep 88 07:51:34 GMT
References: <3938@enea.se> <1399@garth.UUCP> <1790@ogccse.ogc.edu>
Reply-To: eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Calif.
Lines: 32

Oops!  A very good posting by Doug Pase on computer languages, and (oops!)
he cites the ancient Greek God Backus ;-).

I off handedly brought the old subject of column major arrays up
(remember lexical order versus others reasons).  I got this BEFORE Doug's
posting arrived.  And, no, he doesn't read the Usenet.

>Date: Fri, 16 Sep 88 15:06:53 PDT
>From: John Backus
>To: Eugene miya 
>Message-Id: <880916.150653....>
>Subject: Re: Sorry to bother you
>In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri,
>             <8809161958.AA08970@aurora.arc.nasa.gov>
>
> other work-oriented personal stuff deleted
>
>The choice of column orientation of matrices in Fortran was based on
>the fact that in the 704 (and, I think, generally) the test for reaching
>the end of a row did not depend on the row number. Since we expected that
>it was far more common to scan row-wise, this choice enabled us to avoid
>changing the end-of-row-test at the end of every row.

Editing for some privacy.

Another gross generalization from

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
  resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
  "Mailers?! HA!", "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
  {uunet,hplabs,ncar,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."