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From: jav8106@ritvax.isc.rit.edu (Doctor FORTRAN)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: FORTRAN vs C
Message-ID: <1990Nov26.171823.4008@isc.rit.edu>
Date: 26 Nov 90 16:31:22 GMT
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It is a proven fact that nobody actually programs in C. It is only possible to
hack in C. :-)

Let's face it -- C has all kinds of bells and whistles, such as structures,
unions, boolean manipulations, dynamic allocation, etc., but it is a real dog
to work with. For one thing, it simply isn't as portable as FORTRAN. A short on
one machine is something else on another. The whole thing was really a
heinous hack job foisted off on a bunch of computer-science types who simply
had to have those bells and whistles -- and took it to heart in spite of its
glaring inadequacies, which were different from FORTRAN's glaring inadequacies.

Now those aforementioned  bells and whistles are being addressed by the 9X
standard as well as the DoD extensions. Has FORTRAN been slow to adopt these
goodies? Of course! But anyone who has any experience at all with the national
standardizing process (I have served on a technical subcommittee of a working
group) can tell you that it is far easier to introduce something completely new
(such as a new langauge) than modify something which already exists as a
standard. How did FORTRAN 77 come about? Vendors started adding extensions to
FORTRAN IV (sometimes referred to as FORTRAN 66) in order to satisfy market
demand. It finally reached the point when the extensions were so numerous that
a revision of the standard was prudent. The proposed 9X standard evolved from
the existing 77 standard in the same way.

FORTRAN is growing, adapting. C has remained fairly static (no pun intended)
since its introduction. The biggest difference between the first and second
editions of K & R deals with function prototypes. Why doesn't C evolve into
something more attractive, as FORTRAN has? Possibly because the problems with C
are more intrinsic to the langauge itself -- Many of C's problems cannot be
solved by introducing extensions, but rather by changing the langauge itself.
This is difficult to accomplish without introducing serious compatibility
problems.

Of course, C is fairly new in comparison to FORTRAN. If our experience with
FORTRAN is any indication, 10 - 15 years elapse between standard revisions.
Perhaps 10 years from now a more usable C will have evolved. But I doubt that
it will have changes which are as significant as those introduced to standard
FORTRAN in 1977 and in the current proposed standard.

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