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From: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: NOT Educating FORTRAN programmers to use C
Message-ID: <15111@bfmny0.UU.NET>
Date: 23 Jan 90 15:20:42 GMT
References: <12950@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> <14199@lambda.UUCP> <4540@scolex.sco.COM>
Reply-To: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff)
Lines: 38

I think the one merit that everyone who's used FORTRAN will concede is
that it usually discourages you from using a complicated solution where
a simple one will suffice.  Also, the relative risks of letting
DUNDERHEADED programmers (and there's one in every shop) loose with it
are lower.

This newsgroup's opinion may be skewed by the disproportionate number of
systems-type programmers reading it.  There's no question that C was
designed optimally for some systems type tasks that FORTRAN handles more
clumsily, and I think everyone understands this.

But if we descend to the grody world of the Mere Application Programmer
for a moment -- a world more populous than ours I might add -- it's very
frequently the case that what's being asked of the programmer is
essentially a FORTRAN application.  People forget that FORTRAN was
optimized too -- for scientific and business APPLICATION programming.

C is the first systems language to be accepted everywhere.  Because
systems folks call the shots in most new-fashioned 80's shops, and
because they control the all powerful buzzword kingdom of the popular
magazines, it was inevitable that people would try and use C for
*everything*.  I cringed at that trend when it surfaced four or five
years ago, and still do.

One language is not enough for all purposes.  You can do anything in C
*if you're clever enough*, and there are all sorts of really clever
contributors to Usenet who enjoy proving this; but *clever* programmers
are just an interesting minority out there.

The next decade will, I suspect, richly illustrate the risks of forcing
DUMB programmers to do everything in C because the clever experts said
that was the way to go.  I don't think any company has verifiably gone
under because they *couldn't understand* their own code anymore.  The way
is now opened.
-- 
"NASA Awards Acronym Generation       :(%( :  Tom Neff
System (AGS) Contract For Space       : )%):  tneff%bfmny@UUNET.UU.NET
Station Freedom" - release 1989-9891  :(%( :  ...!uunet!bfmny0!tneff