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From: john@ghostwheel.unm.edu (John Prentice)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Fortran -vs- C (yet again)
Message-ID: <1990Nov24.002836.19739@ariel.unm.edu>
Date: 24 Nov 90 00:28:36 GMT
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Organization: University of New Mexico Math Dept., Albuquerque, NM
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Concerning the on-going Fortran vs C discussion, let's turn the
problem around.  Instead of C programmers defending C against
Fortran, I would be curious to hear a discussion of what C has
that is so lacking in Fortan, from the perspective
of the scientific programmer, not the computer scientist.  Most
Fortran programmers are not particularly sophisticated, don't
desire to be, and I don't see that they need to be.  This is the
advantage of Fortran, it is easy.  On the other hand, my background
IS with sophisticated codes (and very, very big ones requiring
hundreds of hours of Cray time to run often).  There are alot of
things I don't like about Fortran, but frankly most of the
features in C that people get so excited about are not ones I
feel too deprived about not using (particularly given that Fortran 90
has alot of them).  I am willing to be convinced that C is in some
sense or another superior to Fortran, but so far nobody has done so.
To be honest however, the whole debate seems a bit sterile.  Use whatever
language you want, they just aren't that different. 

John Prentice
Amparo Corporation