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From: isr@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Michael S. Schechter - ISR group account)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: (pssst...fortran?)
Message-ID: <1990Sep11.160159.16685@rodan.acs.syr.edu>
Date: 11 Sep 90 16:01:59 GMT
References: <9009081858.AA01770@world.std.com> <1990Sep10.193130.20463@rodan.acs.syr.edu> <1990Sep11.043926.26580@syd.dit.CSIRO.AU>
Organization: Institute for Sensory Research
Lines: 33

In article <1990Sep11.043926.26580@syd.dit.CSIRO.AU> reynolds@syd.dit.CSIRO.AU (Chris.Reynolds) writes:
....
>Certain groups of languages, such as C, appeal to people who live in
>"computer software" community, prolog is for those who see problems
>in terms of formal logic, fortran has been successful in allowing
>mathematicians and engineers to do bread and butter numerical
>applications, while cobol's widespread use reflects its suitability for
>large file applications as designed in a commercial environment.
>From Chris Reynolds          (Currently visiting Australia from the UK)
>CSIRO Division of Information Technology
>                                  PO Box 1599, North Ryde, NSW 2113, Australia
>email: reynolds@syd.dit.csiro.au

But while most 'specialty' languages are fine-tuned for their uses
and fulfill a need (such as COBOL, APL, PROLOG, etc) there are
general-purpose languages such as C, PASCAL, BASIC, FORTRAN.
and of these, FORTRAN can be (IMHO) described as being the least
general purpose, the most confusing when it comes to what features are
availible on what fortrans, the one in which competant programmers have
to refer to the manual the most in, and, last but not least,
it is as easy to write a FORTRAN program in any of the others, but
not many programs written in the others would easily port to fortran.
IMHO, my fortran's time has come and gone. it *is* obsolete and should
not be taught any longer except to people in CS. certainly not as
the language to be taught engineerig students.
Let them learn a minimal amount of C, so if they have the curiosity
about learning more, they'll find out about structure's, lists, etc.
But FORTRAN??? Name ONE advantage other than compatibility.
(and FORTRAN source is easily converted automatically)
(Whew!, this was longer than i expected)
--
Mike Schechter, Computer Engineer,Institute Sensory Research, Syracuse Univ.
InterNet: Mike_Schechter@isr.syr.edu isr@rodan.syr.edu Bitnet: SENSORY@SUNRISE