Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!noao!arizona!gudeman
From: gudeman@cs.arizona.edu (David Gudeman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Efficient Fortran
Message-ID: <23894@megaron.cs.arizona.edu>
Date: 5 Aug 90 22:02:06 GMT
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson
Lines: 50

In article  <2428@l.cc.purdue.edu> cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>In article <TED.90Aug3120910@kythera.nmsu.edu>, ted@nmsu.edu (Ted Dunning) writes:
>
>Why do some computer scientists seem to have some deep psychological
>need to make things clumsy?

Computer scientists have a deep psychological need to do real
research, and not play around with trivialities such as syntax.  To
this end, many languages today are parsed with automatically generated
parsers, and the syntax is designed specifically to so that it is easy
to write a yacc grammar for.  I don't think you are going to find much
sympathy for your complaints that you want operator syntax instead of
function syntax for your pet operations.  You may as well complain
that the language is named C instead of a much more presentable letter
such as D.

>> why don't you admit that the fact that *you* don't see any reason for
>> something does not mean that there isn't a reason.  you have provided
>> ample evidence that it only means that you don't see.
>
>The only reasons I have seen advanced are that not too many people would
>use them.  Suppose someone comes to me with a new type of statistical
>problem...

You aren't coming to us with a new type of problem.  You are coming to
us with a minor problem that was noted and satisfactorily answered
thirty years ago.  The problem is: there are a finite number of
operator symbols and and an infinite number of operations.  The most
common solution is: use names for operations and and have a special
operator for applying names as operators (function notation).  It's
not the only solution, but it seems adequate to almost everyone except
you.

All of your other problems are either (1) equally trivial or (2)
already solved by easily available languages or compilers.  In
particular, your apparent need for using direct machine instructions
is solved by gcc, a _free_ C compiler.

>  If a mathematical notation is
>clumsy, it usually does not last long.  Neither should clumsy notation in
>Fortran or C or Lisp or assembler.

In mathematics, there is no great investment involved in changing the
notation.  In programming languages, the investment is often huge.
And in this case, the motivation is miniscule.
-- 
					David Gudeman
Department of Computer Science
The University of Arizona        gudeman@cs.arizona.edu
Tucson, AZ 85721                 noao!arizona!gudeman