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From: dik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Fortran vs. C for numerical work
Message-ID: <2595@charon.cwi.nl>
Date: 27 Nov 90 01:27:55 GMT
References: <649.275140d0@venus.ycc.yale.edu>
Sender: news@cwi.nl
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 30

In article <649.275140d0@venus.ycc.yale.edu> tang@venus.ycc.yale.edu writes:
 > Kjartan wrote that 
 > > you write a program which runs *interactively* on a workstation on
 > > your desktop, you actually see what is happening and you can change
 > > the parameters of the system accordingly, immediatly.
 > > 
 >                                               However, researchers never
 > ceased to ask for more.  Typical examples are higher resolution (more
 > grid points, etc), better physical representations which inevitably
 > require more computation.
As I see it Kjartan adequately describes the researchers viewpoint (for some
suitable definition of researcher) while Tang describes the viewpoint of the
user that is running production programs (like aerospace industries, chemical
industries etc.).  Kjartan should keep in mind that industry (where his
students will go eventually) have other requirements, and, whether they want
or not, they have to learn Fortran.  Large scale computers, that typically
speak mostly Fortran, are sold to aerospace, chemical and automotive industries
(and also financial companies in Japan, so I hear).  There are exceptions of
course, like all (European) national institutes that deal with CERN, and many
national institutes in the US, that are more in the production field as far
as computing is concerned than in the research field.  Their research is about
the results; much less about the algorithms.  I know that at least for the
Dutch national aerospace research laboratory, doing their programs
interactively on a workstation is out of the question.  Who is prepared to sit
many days after a workstation when his nearby NEC SX/2 will do the job in just
a few hours?  If turn around time on super computers make their use not
feasable, it just means that their access is inadequate.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, amsterdam, nederland
dik@cwi.nl