Xref: utzoo comp.lang.fortran:4130 comp.lang.c:34210 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!taumet!steve From: steve@taumet.com (Stephen Clamage) Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.c Subject: Re: Fortran vs. C for numerical work Message-ID: <531@taumet.com> Date: 24 Nov 90 17:41:07 GMT References: <21884@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> Followup-To: comp.lang.fortran Organization: Taumetric Corporation, San Diego Lines: 26 ghe@comphy.physics.orst.edu (Guangliang He) writes: >In article bglenden@mandrill.cv.nrao.edu (Brian Glendenning) writes: >> >>It is often stated that Fortran is better than C for numerical work... >It may not be true any more. A friend of mine brought a little fortran >program ... >the excutable from C is faster than the excutable from Fortran by a few percent What we have here is an example of one program compiled by one FORTRAN compiler and a translation of that program compiled by one C compiler. Comparison of the execution speeds of the two programs on one machine cannot lead to any valid conclusions about the relative utility of the two languages for numerical work. FORTRAN has a large body of standard libraries for numerical work whose operation and reliability have been well-tested for many years. This cannot be said for C, although some multi-language evironments allow such FORTRAN libraries to be called from C programs. The utility of a language must be judged by more criteria than just execution speed of one sample program. -- Steve Clamage, TauMetric Corp, steve@taumet.com