Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!lll-winken!sun-barr!newstop!sun!sun-bb!khb From: khb@chiba.kbierman@sun.com (Keith Bierman - SPD Advanced Languages) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Educating FORTRAN programmers to use C Message-ID: Date: 15 Jan 90 21:50:23 GMT References: <1016@sdrc.UUCP> <1990Jan6.003158.2039@aqdata.uucp> <1024@sdrc.UUCP> <167@metapyr.UUCP> <15078@bfmny0.UU.NET> <16717@duke.cs.duke.edu> <1298@wrgate.WR.TEK.COM> Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM Followup-To: comp.lang.misc Organization: Sun Microsystems Lines: 42 In-reply-to: daniels@teklds.WR.TEK.COM's message of 10 Jan 90 17:25:53 GMT In article <1298@wrgate.WR.TEK.COM> daniels@teklds.WR.TEK.COM (Scott Daniels) writes: ....This has been one of the problems for C that the ANSI standard addresses. Original C was required to treat all library functions by invokation, just .... look for the top of the line new ANSI C compilers to start doing the kind of aggressive unfolding and reorganizing that was previously only available to Fortran...... Actually enough errno nonsense and stuff was added so that SVID, ANSI, POSIX are all modestly different .... and none as optimizable as Fortran. NCEG is working to rationalize matters. ... or at least approach the speed of FORTRAN programs. Aliasing takes care of that. On any given machine, with equal efforts given to the optimizer technology ... Fortran wins. The only way for C to break even or win (on large application programs) is for the compiler writers to avoid doing the best they can for Fortran, and work overtime to fixup C. .... of analysis as the system functions. C++ provides some of this (much more than most languages), but the functional languages (I am particularly thinking of lml here) get closer to what you'd like than any of the more traditional languages. Fortran 90 (as just renamed by X3J3) does about as good a job as C++, or better in some ways. Still not the same as building the rules into the compiler, of course. -- Keith H. Bierman |*My thoughts are my own. !! kbierman@sun.com It's Not My Fault | MTS --Only my work belongs to Sun* I Voted for Bill & | Advanced Languages/Floating Point Group Opus | "When the going gets Weird .. the Weird turn PRO" "There is NO defense against the attack of the KILLER MICROS!" Eugene Brooks