Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!microsoft!bobal
From: bobal@microsoft.UUCP (Bob Allison)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: C vs. FORTRAN
Summary: here we go again...
Message-ID: <7274@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 7 Aug 89 18:28:47 GMT
References: <3289@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu>
Reply-To: bobal@microsoft.UUCP (Bob Allison)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 43

In article <3289@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu> SMITHJ@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu writes:
>
>This may have been discussed here millions of times before, but here it goes.
>

   No, merely thousands of times.

>What are the reasons for using FORTRAN over C?
>
>I have heard claims that the code is easier to optimize and that current
>benchmarks show that this is the case on all mainframes.  My experience is
>that this is pure bu****it.  Have done my own testing, I find that C runs
>faster on PC's.
>

    Let's avoid all the religious arguments and get down to brass tacks:
    if you feel that C works better for you, on the architecture that
    you need to use, with the applications you are interested in running,
    then use C.  There are others who are interfacing to libraries already
    written in FORTRAN, or whose applications or architectures favor
    a FORTRAN implementation and they use FORTRAN.  Okay?  Now go away.

>Is it likely that C runs slower--on say the VAX--because it is only in
>version 2.4 whereas the FORTRAN compiler is at version 90+ (i.e. fewer
>man hours have been put into developing mainframe C compilers)?
>

    No.  Yes.  Maybe.  It depends on whether they use a common optimizer,
    how much man-power is actually put into each project, and whether
    one of the languages is truly easier to optimize than the other.
   
>No remarks about the ease of use of complex numbers in FORTRAN are acceptable.

   Well, I guess that defines your application for you.  If you want a
   general comparison of FORTRAN and C, you've got to accept this as an
   issue.  Otherwise, it seems you've already made up your mind.  Take it
   on faith that everyone else has already made up their minds as well 
   and let's try not to go around proselytizing on this issue for once.

>/* Jeffery G. Smith, BS-RHIT (AKA Doc. Insomnia, WMHD-FM)       *

(This is not directly specifically at you, but rather at the hundred other
people who are going to respond, multiple times, over this issue).