Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mcnc!uvaarpa!murdoch!astsun.astro.Virginia.EDU!gl8f
From: gl8f@astsun.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Missing the whole point (and stereotyping people)
Message-ID: <1990Dec1.221415.22408@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
Date: 1 Dec 90 22:14:15 GMT
References: <28548@usc>
Sender: news@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU
Organization: Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia
Lines: 33

In article <28548@usc> ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) writes:

>The essential reason why I get repelled fortran, dusty decks 
>in fortran and the mindset of traditional (read: went to graduate
>school before 1975) fortran programmers is the terrible
>look-and-feel.

This isn't necessarily true. There are lots of "modern" fortran
programmers out there who write reuseable modules and use modern
programming techniques. What annoys me about this whole discussion are
people who stereotype everyone else, and make general claims which
might be true for them but aren't for others. The "best language" is
relative to not only the problem but the programmer.

>  Beautiful (read: efficient on my time)
>programming comes with a rich appreciation of how algorithms +
>data structures makes programs,

Aglorithms + Data Structures = Quiche

Slogans are just words.

>Face it: optimisers can give you 2x gains *at best*.  Hardly the
>kind of thing to be basing an entire computational strategy on.

This has not been my experience. The thing I like about FORTRAN is
that I can put down a formula in a loop, and I don't have to worry
about little things like vector directives, common sub-expression
elimination, register assignment, pointer aliasing, and unrolling. Not
having to worry about such things makes me a more efficient
programmer.

Your mileage may differ.


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