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From: rosenkra@convex1.convex.com (William Rosencranz)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: What is the FORTRAN for ?
Message-ID: <104427@convex.convex.com>
Date: 29 Jul 90 08:59:22 GMT
References: <11029@chaph.usc.edu> <58098@lanl.gov>
Sender: news@convex.com
Organization: Convex Computer Corporation; Richardson, TX
Lines: 68


---
what the heck, i might as well add my 2 cents...

having programmed in fortran for close to 20 years (sheesh!) and C for
about 6, i use both languages for different reasons. it is practically
impossible to _easily_ program systems software, at least unix systems
software, in fortran. go ahead and try to use sockets in fortran. i dare
you! i know, i have. C has more clearly defined, or should i say more
visible, data structures via structs and unions. i also find it better
for string operations and things like parsing. C was developed to make
unix portable. it has done that remarkably well, IMHO. it could probably
have been done with fortran, too, i suspect. it would not be _better_
in fortran, just _different_. i have worked on pseudo operating systems
in fortran, so i know it can be done.

fortran, on the other hand, is still THE language for number crunching,
having things built in like complex data types,
though vectorizing C compilers are getting as good, provided you write
C like fortran and not as convoluted as things can get in C. there is
a huge investment in fortran, which cannot be dismissed. it is just not
good business to do so. yes, i _am_ a capitalist!

in a significant application involving parsing (i.e. reading input data)
and computation, i'd probably try and use both. then tools like yacc and
lex become available, speeding the development process which saves $$$,
increasing profits, making the user's life easier (with more sophisticated
parsers), etc., which are all really the name of the game.

the bottom line is that good programming is good programming, regardless
of the language. i have seen (and done :-) abuses in both languages so
i would not say it is any inherent difficiency of a language that is the
problem, rather the user of the language.

i feel comfortable with both. each has their strong (and weak) points.
this should not be a religious issue if you are rational about it.
(down with language bigots!). you can do just about anything in one
language that can be done in the other (and visa versa). it just boils
down to which is the more productive tool to use. for me it is not an
academic or theoretical decision. it is a business decision as it should
be for most any serious programmer who programs for a living. if i can
get a job done faster with C, meeting specs, i use C so i can either
have more free time or can move on to the next project. same goes
for fortran. that's why there is chocolate and vanilla!

i consider byself pretty unbiased regarding languages, though i admit
that i curse at fortran more than C, primarily because i had been
using C more for the past 4-5 years. what i should really do is curse
at myself (or the author of the code i am trying to debug :-).

BTW: f2c is a must for bilingual programmers. it is really an excellent
tool. it is also written in C.

no offense intended to anyone here. my opinions only....

-bill
rosenkra%c1yankee@convex.com

(note that companies like convex make both vectorizing/parallel C and
fortran compilers that get better and better so the distinctions between
the languages tend to blur over time. progressive standards also tend to
improve languages as well. i have just discovered Ada, which i thought
i would really hate, but now find it quite an interesting language, once
i took the time to understand it, both syntactically as well as why it
was developed in the first place.)

Bill Rosenkranz            |UUCP: {uunet,texsun}!convex!c1yankee!rosenkra
Convex Computer Corp.      |ARPA: rosenkra%c1yankee@convex.com